“Pan’s Labyrinth” is an excellent, skillfully crafted piece of filmmaking with only a few minor flaws. Not only emotionally moving and intellectually evocative, the film also simply entertains. Few films succeed on all three levels, but this one proves to be a diamond in the rough.

Admittedly, I had anticipated a grimmer version of “What Dreams May Come” (1998), a movie wherein the fantasy realm was the major thrust of the film and the real-world elements just a subplot. Here the reverse is true, and even the fantasy realms were toned down from what I expected. The imagery and style were beautiful and striking but not as breathtaking or sweeping as I had imagined or hoped.

Summary

Set in Francisco Franco’s Spain shortly after the Spanish Civil War of the 1930s, protagonist Ofelia (Ivana Baquero) is accompanying her pregnant mother (Ariadna Gil) to their new home, a rural military outpost run by her new step-father, the brutal Capitán Vidal (Sergi López). The Capitán has twin obsessions: having a son (he is more concerned with his unborn child’s well-being than the mother’s) and destroying the rebels hiding in the woods. He does not at first realize the resistance to his violent tyranny residing within his own household. Ofelia, meanwhile, finds herself escaping into the fantasy realm of Pan’s Labyrinth. Pan (Doug Jones) tells Ofelia she is the long-lost princess of a supernatural realm, but before she can return, she must prove her worthiness by completing three tasks.

Quality

In many respects, “Pan’s Labyrinth” is a masterpiece of filmmaking. The direction, cinematography, and acting shine. “Pan’s Labyrinth” is one of the most carefully constructed films I’ve seen in a long time, and the attention to detail manages to bring unity to some very disparate storylines.

Baquero, López, and Maribel Verdú playing housekeeper Mercedes are simply mesmerizing. The character of the López borders on cartoonish, and an injury he suffers toward the end of the film doesn’t help, recalling the Joker from “Batman” (1989). But López brings an intensity and ferocity to the role that imbues the character with all the dimensions of a man trapped by his own ideology and warped by his self-righteousness.

Baquero, at times a bit bland, nevertheless brings the requisite sense of innocence, wonder, and guilelessness to her character. But it is Verdú who truly shines in the movie. She becomes the film’s moral and emotional center with her moving, layered performance as a rebel torn between many duties and loyalties.

As mentioned, the rich, detailed visuals in the fantasy realm give the movie a textured, supernatural feel. In addition, for the use of a foreign language in the film contributes to the otherworldly atmosphere.

Minor Criticisms

Having said all that, I expected more from the visuals. This is just personal peccadilloes, of course, but I think the fantasy scenes would have benefited from being more visually discernible from the rest of the movie. The whole film is uniformly dark and gray. With the exception of the final scene, so were the fantasy scenes.

In fact, the fantasy thread felt underutilized. By far the bulk of the movie focuses on the “real” world of the Capitán hunting for rebels and awaiting the birth of his son. The fantasy scenes, although powerful and striking enough to feel substantial out of proportion to their actual screen time, still comprised little more than a subplot. One of the scenes introduced an extremely creepy and metaphorically rich character called the Pale Man (Doug Jones again). But his role was limited, whereas this figure could have made a powerful counterpoint to the Capitán.

The “real” world story also sometimes dragged with director Guillermo del Toro’s careful, methodical approach to the story.

In addition, I found a few logical inconsistencies in the movie. I wouldn’t expect a fairy tale-style story to follow the logic of the “real” world, but I do expect it to follow its own internal logic. It sometimes failed at this. For example, one scene used an hourglass to introduce some dramatic tension, but the ultimate resolution of the scene rendered the hourglass meaningless. Unfortunately, this turns the prop into a contrived plot device rather than a meaningful element of the scene.

The film’s weaknesses are few and minor, but sufficient to keep me from scoring it a full 5.0.

Analysis

** WARNING – MAJOR SPOILERS FOLLOW. The rest of this writing contains more analysis than review, so please stop here until you’ve seen the film, and then return. Trust me – don’t spoil your first viewing of this movie. This section SPOILS THE ENDING of the movie. **

Most fairy tales, at their core, are quite dark and gruesome. They are also, by nature, exaggerated. Like walking through a funhouse of mirrors, we are reflected back at ourselves in distorted or fantastical forms. Further, translating a fairy tale for an adult will almost always render it at least a little disturbing. Consider Harry Potter, whose adoptive family is clearly abusive. I always have a hard time reading those sections of the Harry Potter books. But it is the grimness that give otherwise silly stories much of their depth, and the exaggerated elements that allow us to hold them at arm’s length and say that they’re not real.

Unusually, in “Pan’s Labyrinth” the darkness is founded more in the real world than the fantasy. By far, the worst monster of the film is the Capitán, whose cruelty shocks and horrifies beyond any of the supernatural elements of the story. Illustrations in the Pale Man’s domain depict him skewering small children, and although he bites the heads of cute little fairies (well, okay, the fairies all looked mildly sinister to me), he seems rather bloodless for a supernatural villain. It does suggest that the Pale Man is Ofelia’s fantasy translation of the Captain.

There’s a saying that the greatest trick the devil ever pulled was to make us believe he doesn’t exist. I don’t agree: I think the greatest trick is to make us believe we’re not him.

We are the worst monsters we’ve ever met. For all the fairy tales, ghost stories, and myths we tell ourselves, the evil of the world isn’t “out there.” We may project it out there, trying to disown it or understand it more clearly, but ultimately we’re the ones who give birth to it, who make it real in the world through our choices and actions. And by placing it “out there,” we divest ourselves of responsibility for it, which only allows us to perpetuate it, both collectively and individually.

Dogmatic ideology provides fertile ground for evil to take root. Fascist regimes will render some group into the Cause of All Suffering. All we have to do is eliminate them (Jews, rebels, whosoever disagrees with the particular ideology), and the rest of us will exist in paradise. The Catholic Church does not escape Del Toro’s recrimination. In fact, Franco’s autocratic rule over Spain is sometimes called National Catholicism in that the Catholic Church’s moral system was rigidly and violently enforced during Franco’s regime, leading to an era of censorship and repression. In fact, the Catholic Church explicitly supported Franco’s rule. In the movie, the village priest dines with the Captain, a subtle symbol of the Church’s affirmation of the Capitán’s fascism and tyranny. Del Toro even says, “The Pale Man represents the Church for me… [He] represents fascism and the Church eating the children when they have a perversely abundant banquet in front of them. There is almost a hunger to eat innocence” (1).

Del Toro offers another strike against blind ideology and religion. In one scene, Pan admonishes Ofelia, “You have to stay in this world forever because you didn’t obey.” But at the end, Ofelia succeeds specifically because she disobeyed. She did not allow someone else to think for her, nor did she seek to elevate herself at the cost of violence to another. Another scene in the “real” world undergirds this theme. The Capitán, discovering the duplicity of the Doctor (Álex Angulo), says, “You could have obeyed me!” The Doctor replies, “But Captain, obey for obeying’s sake? That’s something only people like you do.” Choice defines what we are as human, and as Del Toro says, “Blind obedience castrates, negates, hides, and destroys what makes us human” (2). He also states, “I thought it would be great to counterpoint an institutional lack of choice, which is fascism, with the chance to choose, which the girl takes in this movie” (3).

At the same time, another scene muddies this particular theme a bit: Ofelia’s disobedience in the scene with the Pale Man, by eating the grapes, did lead to a real, negative consequence. But perhaps it is fascist of me to demand perfection from her. Flaws and mistakes makes us real, yielding vulnerability and raw, unvarnished humanity. (Truth be told, though, I thought Ofelia stopping to eat the grapes was contrived and heavy-handed, simultaneously predictable and hard to believe.)

The vulnerability and weakness of the flesh becomes another thematic thread. In fact, pain and suffering are recurring motifs throughout the movie: Ofelia’s mother’s terminal pregnancy, scenes of slaughter and battle, torture, the Capitán’s own terrible wound, the amputation of a gangrenous leg, etc. Recall how Pan threatens Ofelia with old age and death if she fails in her tasks. The infirmity of the body is the curse of the real world, and the ability to suffer the aspect of the human condition Ofelia would most like to shed.

Some traditions in Catholicism suggest that physical suffering brings us closer to God: hence practices like horse-hair shirts and self-flagellation. In this film, suffering is more of an impetus to escape the world.

Which brings us to an unusual thematic twist in the movie: going into the light. Usually this means ascending into Heaven, but the fairy tale at the very beginning of the film reverses this. The Other Side here is subterranean, dark and enclosed. “Pan’s Labyrinth” portrays the real world as the world of light. And yet, then the real world is shown as violent and gruesome. So where is the light we seek? The film never portrays a higher realm. By implication, the film postulates that we are the source of our own light. Since the film clearly supposes that we are the source of evil in the world, it makes sense that the converse would be true as well.

Ofelia demonstrates this more obviously than anyone. In fact, Ofelia writes her own story metaphorically, and almost literally, by using the blank book Pan gives her. And this presents one of the more interesting questions raised by the movie: is the fantasy realm of Pan’s Labyrinth real, or is it just in Ofelia’s head?

I don’t see it as an either/or. We live in a world of duality, and we often treat it like a zero-sum game where if it’s not black, it must be white. But I am fascinated by the idea that there can be multiple worlds superimposed on each other. This is one of the most interesting elements of, say, a world like “Silent Hill” (2006). The city of Silent Hill has several “versions” or “dimensions” which exist simultaneously: the ordinary, “real” Silent Hill, the ghostly and supernatural “gray” Silent Hill, and the nightmarish and evil “dark” Silent Hill.

Is it possible that Ofelia and her step-father live in two overlapping but fundamentally different worlds? He doesn’t see the Faun at the end of the film because, while Ofelia exists in both worlds, he exists in only one? Or is his preconceived understanding of the world so narrow but so deeply ideological that he simply can’t see the Faun? Confirmation bias is a psychological principle stating that people selectively search for, and interpret, information in the environment in order to confirm their pre-existing ideas. Concordantly, disconfirmation bias states that people are especially critical of information that contradicts their preconceptions and at the same are uncritically accepting of information that supports their preconceived ideas. Literally not seeing an entire magical creature would certainly be an exaggeration of these experimentally tested concepts, but as I’ve already stated, fairy tales are the province of exaggeration.

Perhaps it is Ofelia’s “innocence” as a child that allows her to see Pan. The adult mind, so fixed in its ideas, can neither perceive nor process that kind of information. Recall that Ofelia’s mother told her that magic is not real, especially for grown-ups. Similarly, Mercedes tells Ofelia that she used to believe in fairies, when she was a girl, but no longer. As Wayne Dyer would argue, we’ll see it when we believe it. Lacking belief, we blind ourselves to the magic that surrounds us. Or, unbelieving, we are unable to manufacture magic in our lives. Says Del Toro, “’Pan’s Labyrinth’ is a movie about a girl who gives birth to herself into the world she believes in” (4).

Consider the famous quote commonly attributed to Racter (an artificial intelligence computer program, short for Raconteur): “The human doesn’t see things as they are, but as he is.”

The movie’s finale doesn’t really provide the catharsis the viewer may be looking for. It didn’t in my case, at any rate. We want it to be clearly established whether the fairy tale is real or not. (Also, I really wanted the Pale Man to bite off the Capitán’s head.)

Instead, the two sides of the story resolve themselves separately. Ofelia descends into her fantasy realm forever, or at least finally. And the Capitán earns his reward: not only death but anonymity from his own son. And yet, after causing so much suffering and death, his own demise seems anticlimactic.

Ofelia’s final scene has distinctly religious overtones, with a pieta-style mother-and-baby sitting in a throne next to a gentleman who resembles a traditional Judeo-Christian God-figure. In a way, this presentation jars the viewer, diverting from the film’s otherwise agnostic vibe. But perhaps it simply brings “Pan’s Labyrinth” full circle by emphasizing that the Other World is mysterious and ultimately unknowable to those of us who have not yet shed the mortal coil.

In the words of Guillermo Del Toro: “The movie is like a Rorschach test where, if you view it and you don’t believe, you’ll view the movie as, ‘Oh, it was all in her head.’ If you view it as a believer, you’ll see clearly where I stand, which is it is real.” (5)

(1) Michael Guillén, “Pan’s Labyrinth: Interview with Guillermo Del Toro,” Twitchfilm.net, 16 December 2006, http://www.twitchfilm.net/archives/008507.html (21 January 2007).
(2) Ibid.
(3) Mark Kermode, “Review: Pan’s Labyrinth,” The Observer, 5 November 2006, http://observer.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,,1939500,00.html (23 January 2007).
(4) Ibid.
(5) Michael Guillén, “Pan’s Labyrinth: Interview with Guillermo Del Toro,” Twitchfilm.net, 16 December 2006, http://www.twitchfilm.net/archives/008507.html (21 January 2007).

Diana’s death rocked both Britain and the royal family. The latter managed to alienate a significant portion of the British public by their seemingly blasé response to the tragedy. “The Queen” portrays the dance between the royal family and Downing Street in an effort to navigate the unprecedented and perilous events.

It helps to have some interest in royalty and the royal family, but even without that, “The Queen” represents an amazing effort of film-making. The acting is simply stellar all around. Helen Mirren in particular captivates with her portrayal of Queen Elizabeth II, and Michael Sheen as Tony Blair, Alex Jennings as Prince Charles, and James Cromwell as Prince Philip are wonderful. I can’t say enough good things about the actors. Story-wise, the plot is well-paced for a thoughtful docudrama, but viewers expecting fast-paced royal family fireworks may be disappointed.

Supposedly, Peter Morgan’s thoughtful script is based on extensive interviews with staffers and anonymous informants from both the royal household and Downing Street. Some scenes are obviously fictional, but a surprisingly large portion of the film strikes the viewer as eminently believable as reality. Although the script is mildly critical of the Windsors, and Prince Philip is portrayed as an elitist, prejudicial old fool, Mirren conveys a troubled queen who undergoes deep soul-searching to understand the events that have taken her by surprise. She is suddenly forced to question her role in the world: her aide Robin (Roger Allam), trying to explain her seemingly callous behavior to Prime Minister Blair, notes that she was born and bred to believe God had brought her to the role of monarch. The heart of the movie lies in the queen’s struggle to understand the events following Diana’s death and her consideration of her role in a world that often prefers celebrity to dignity.

Watch this movie.

A brilliant albeit flawed gem.

Based on the novel by P.D. James and set in 2027, no child has been born since 2009. Although the film never explains the cause, it vaguely implies a flu epidemic around that time rendered women everywhere infertile. Under the crushing weight of an empty and hopeless future, a pre-apocalyptic world of violence and chaos takes root. The film begins with a newscast reporting the murder of 18-year-old Diego Ricardo (Juan Gabriel Yacuzzi), the youngest person in the world, and our protagonist Theo (Clive Owen) narrowly escaping a terrorist bombing of a coffee shop. Thereafter, he is kidnapped by old flame Julian (Julianne Moore), who heads up the group held responsible: the Fishes, who fight for the rights of illegal immigrants (in the movie, all non-citizens of Britain are illegal). Through their group, Theo discovers that not all hope for humanity has been lost, and he must embark on a perilous journey for the salvation and redemption of humanity.

The Visuals

The film is visually stunning in its portrayal of a decaying and dystopian England. I can’t say it’s beautiful, but the scene design and cinematography bring the desperation of the future world to vivid life. Filmed almost documentary-style, the filmmakers have given future-Britain an almost palpable texture. Every image reinforces the loneliness of the future, from the trashed-out, slow decay of urban London to the serenity of rural forests to the immense isolation of a fog-enshrouded sea. Cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki deserves every kudo he receives for his award-worthy visuals. Even the haunting setting of a ramshackle, abandoned school, worthy of a ghost story, impresses with a dystopian grace.

Similarly, the film contains several awe-inspiring action sequences. For example, one breathtaking scene depicts a vicious attack on a car by raiders hiding in the woods. You’ve never seen a car chase like this. Another extended sequence, near the climax of the film, follows Theo moving through a battle between British soldiers and the Fishes. Theo is trying to enter a tenement building, and then return back out. The scene where Theo escorts Kee (Claire-Hope Ashitey) and one other past the soldiers provides an amazing and intense moment.

Together, the visuals, the action, and the tight story yield a hold-your-breath, nail-biting suspense thriller.

The Characters & Actors

How interesting that Julianne Moore receives second billing for something like ten minutes of screen time. But she does a fantastic job. It almost makes me think of Dame Judi Dench as Queen Elizabeth in “Shakespeare in Love” (1998): she only had a brief role, but what a performance!

But the real scene-stealer is Michael Caine as Jasper, an aging pot-smoking hippy. He and Moore provide the most emotional depth and range of the film. Owen’s performance is appropriately cold and withdrawn, reflecting the soul-numbing effect of living in a world without hope. Only his ever-present bottle of hard liquor warms him up. Those few occasions when he does show a little humor or joy, it’s almost hard to buy into, such is the devastation that the environment and personal tragedy have wrought on him.

The film sticks close to Theo, leaving the viewer without a truly comprehensive picture of the grim society. That approach is a double-edged sword. It heightens the tension, giving the movie a tight, uncertain, and claustrophobic feel. At the same, it diminishes the context in which the story is taking place, which bleeds the film of deeper meaning….

The Vagueness

… Which brings me to my major (and really only) criticism of the movie: an irritating cornucopia of unanswered questions and unexplored ideas.

“Children of Men” offers up enough juicy tidbits of metaphor, symbol, and theme to give viewers who don’t mind filling in the blanks themselves a lot to chew over. At the same time, every time I start thinking through a theme or plot thread introduced in the movie, I can take it one or two steps deeper, but more than that and I’m left grasping at straws. That’s frustrating.

And it leaves the viewer with a lot of unanswered questions: surely humanity’s response would kick to high-gear very quickly. Even if they couldn’t solve the infertility problem, what about alternative possibilities, like cloning? Or did that fail too, or did people adhere to their moral objections even in the face of the infertility crisis? And what the hell is the Human Project, which turns out to be the Holy Grail of the movie’s protagonists?

The conclusion certainly doesn’t help. Yes, it’s poetic and powerful, but it creates almost as many new questions as old questions it fails to answer!

** WARNING – MAJOR SPOILERS FOLLOW. The rest of this writing contains more analysis than review, so please stop here until you’ve seen the film, and then return. **

Themes

Nevertheless, although the movie fails to take its themes very far, it introduces some fantastic and deeply thought-provoking ideas and suppositions:

• Infertility. Taken metaphorically, this could reflect the increasing destructiveness of humanity. Perhaps our tendency to aggressiveness has remained constant over history, but the means to destroy have grown exponentially in power and scope. Infertility could also be taken as a more subtle metaphor, commenting on humanity’s tendency to recycle rather than truly create. In fact, many times our inability to leave the past behind, to unhinge ourselves from our baggage, is what causes us to repeat the same mistakes. Of course, I should note – I’m taking this idea and expounding on it with my own thoughts. The film does not explore it further than introducing it as a plot point.
• Zero-Sum Politics. “Children of Men” paints a stark portrait of a world with finite and diminishing resources. Those who have are almost literally taking food out of the mouths of those who have not. As the remaining population ages, gradually it will be left to fewer and fewer people to support a huge population of elderly folks. At some point, without any young people to replenish the work force, the weight of the population requiring support and assistance will be crushing. Which naturally would lead to…
  • Xenophobia. In the film, most of the world has descended into madness and anarchy, and Britain is one of the last bastions of “orderly” civilization. But it comes at a high price: only natural-born British citizens are legal. Everyone else is stuffed into concentration camps (more sinister camps are hinted at, but not revealed) and/or deported.
  • Self-Interest. In a time of darkness and chaos, self-interest reigns. It’s easily believable, but also a sad commentary. Most people like to believe that adversity brings out the best in us, that our humanitarian instincts would draw us together and give truth to Aesop’s statement “United we stand, divided we fall.” But in the face of a zero-sum situation, many (if not most) people will be ruled by their own self-interest. In the movie, this is clearly true not just on an individual level, but also in terms of political movements (Luke, played by Chiwetel Ejiofor, who leads the Fishes after Julian’s death, appears all too willing to endanger the best chance for humanity’s salvation for his own partisan goals; same with policeman Syd, played by Peter Mullan) and nations (the xenophobia in the film reveals that Britain clearly favors Britons at the expense of non-Britons). Frankly, self-interest can be defensible, even morally defensible, in such a situation. But it also comes with a terrible price tag, not least of which is our own humanity.
  • Sectarian Violence. Rather than bringing out the best, tragedy elicits the worst in many people. Self-interest can be an understandable guiding principle in dangerous times, but it’s a slippery slope which can easily turn into an eye-for-an-eye and a life-for-a-life. Rather than quelling sectarian interests in favor of coming together (”united we stand”), disaster and a permanent lack of resources simply fuel sectarian violence. Because the sects and gangs become like extended families: they become support groups dedicated to protecting their own (unless “their own” decide to stage a coup, as in the movie). It’s unlikely that an individual (especially a poor or lower class individual) would have access to sufficient resources to survive, much less thrive. Even family units would probably struggle. But by uniting in a gang-situation, they might have a fighting chance. And “fighting” is certainly the key word, because the resources for survival have to come from somewhere. And the government, unable to snap its fingers and create new resources, is clearly going to be unable to solve the problem. Hence…
• The Relativity of Moral Principles. The British government provides home suicide kits (”Quietus”) to its citizens. Considering the controversy over euthanasia, this is an element of the film I have a hard time buying into. But I also realize that Britain will have dwindling resources, and I am also well are that most moral postulates, far from being absolute, evolve both over time and through circumstances. Often the morals reflect the self-serving interests (e.g., reducing the drain on the government’s resources).
• Iraq. The film definitely includes some commentary on the current War on Terror, with emphasis on the action in Iraq. There’s a newspaper clipping in Jasper’s house explicitly making a statement against the war in Iraq. The journey to Bexhill also includes a stop with hooded prisoners, including one standing in a pose identical to the infamous photo from Abu Ghraib.

Fundamentally, “Children of Men” takes many of our current problems and magnifies them. It asks, what would the world look like if Today’s Topical Issues A, B, and C were each multiplied by 1,000? It paints a bleak and desperate, but believable, portrait.

Interestingly, the characters’ names all seem to offer additional layers of meaning as well:

• Kee, who gives birth to the first baby in nearly 20 years and possibly holds the key to humanity’s survival in her hands (or womb, as the case may be). The Chinese word chi (or ch’i, or qi, or Japanese ki) means “life energy” or “spiritual energy
• Theo, who helps Kee to give birth and escape into a better tomorrow. “Theo” is derived from “theos,” which is Greek for “deity” or “god.” Although he’s playing a Joseph figure for the most part, the ending of the movie imparts a bit of a Christ vibe onto him. A recurrent theme through the movie is, is God punishing humanity? The film in no way expresses this, but perhaps Theo has been chosen to function as a divine instrument for the preservation of humanity.
• Jasper, a “wise old man” figure who plays a pivotal role in helping Kee and Theo escape. According to Wikipedia, Jasper is a Dutch/German variant of the name Casper, who was one of the three gift-giving Kings present at the birth of the Christ.
• Julian, Theo’s former flame and the peace-preferring leader of the Fishes who recognizes Kee as humanity’s greatest hope. English history tells of a Medieval female mystic named Julian of Norwich who saw suffering not as punishment but as a means to draw people closer to God. She lived during the Plague, which many people interpreted divine punishment. (For more information, try http://www.luminarium.org/medlit/julian.htm).
• Miriam (Pam Ferris), who functions as a caretaker and midwife to Kee until they are separated. Biblically (Exodus 2:1-10), Miriam was Moses’ sister, and it was she who hid Moses after the Pharaoh decreed that all Hebrew male babies be killed.

Overall

I am disappointed at the myriad questions left unanswered, and the intriguing themes left unexplored, but the film is a powerful and thrilling experience. It’s heavy, but it may just be one of those films that makes you think about the world a little bit differently.

At the beginning of this review, I called the film a brilliant but flawed gem. Perhaps that’s an accurate description of the human race as well.