Pan’s Labyrinth - A dark, dark fairy tale for adults, with some really deep tones.
Has anyone else seen this movie? I was really blown away. I know it’s been out for a little while on DVD. It’s one of those movies that I NEVER would have rented but my husband, the movie buff, rented and I ended up really affected by. (And it was scary! The beige monster with no eyes gave me nightmares.)
It takes place in 1944, post civil war Spain. A little girl is forced into a scary new life. Her new stepfather is a military captain hunting guerrilla soldiers in the forest and he is an evil, evil man. She seems to escape her scary world in fantasy, which is so very dark but amazing.
I was so moved by this film, I think it will haunt me for some time. The bravery of the little girl, the darkness and feeling in the movie, the moral lessons threaded throughout…
It won Academy Awards for Best Art Direction, Best Cinematography, and Best Makeup.
It’s in Spanish and we watched it with subtitles. (Interestingly, the director spent two months doing the subtitles himself, in a rare move. He was unhappy with subtitles on done on previous movies and felt they were unacceptable. The result? “It doesn’t feel like watching a sub-titled film.”)
I’d love to know if others in the forum have seen this film, and if they were similarly moved. Can’t believe I hadn’t rented it sooner.