I've essentially quit buying DVDs. Maybe it's because I'm concentrating so much on watching films I've never seen. Maybe I just don't need all this shit cluttering my life. Maybe because I'm tired of owning films that I really don't like all that much.
If I were to buy 10 DVDs, Pan's Labyrinth would probably be one of them. It has everything from the great acting (some brilliant Spanish actors and actresses), a really cool story set in a really interesting time in history (the Spanish Civil War). It's history set behind this fairy tale that attempts to create a myth that is cracked by this very real, very tragic reality. To me, that's horrifyingly sad.
Visually, it trumps most of what I've seen. Guillermo del Toro just simply does it for me here. I love the look and the colors. I love the violence and the uniforms.
It makes you wonder what Alice in Wonderland, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Chronicles of Narnia and other recent fantasy films would have looked like and been had del Toro been put in charge.
I did want to make note that this film reminded me a lot of Cria Cuervos and The Spirit of the Beehive, two Spanish films released during Francisco Franco's regime, which both contained allegories criticizing the fascist regime, the same defeated 40 years before in Pan's Labyrinth. All three have a dark-haired young girl as the protagonist. But only one has a half-man, half-goat.
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