"Pan's Labyrinth"

Pan's Labyrinth, which has received notable attention over the last several months, is my new favorite film. I didn't get to see quite as many as the awards-talk movies as I'd like to have this year, but I did see Babel, The Departed, Little Miss Sunshine, and yes, Dreamgirls (which I personally found disappointing). Pan's Labryinth is my favorite of them all (right ahead of Sunshine, which I loved). It's been called a "fairy tale for adults," and it does that which all good tales do: it gives allowance for imagination where symbolism actually works. And yes, key in my mind when it comes to a truly good story, there are times where I see myself more clearly. I see myself in the hope of the characters, the perseverance and dreams, as well as in the ugliness, the frightening.

Pan's Labyrinth did something I so greatly appreciated: it beautifully blended the mysterious and the real, and you are left amazed at how closely the two can resemble each other. Which is the fanciful? Is there mystery in the real and reality in the mysterious? I think too often we separate the two into distinct categories, and I think it's our loss. Yes, it's a foreign film from Mexico that takes place in Spain in 1944, and all of it adds to the uniqueness of this film. There are some intense and graphic moments of violence, and a few outbursts of extreme vulgarity, but the movie does not glorify; this movie unmistakably makes the distinction between evil and good. Such an allegorical movie runs the risk of being dry and unengaging; Pan's Labyrinth succeeds at engaging the audience in both the real and the fanciful, each story as compelling and captivating as the other.