intertribal | what if he's right? what if there's no way we can win?

"And it is said that the Princess returned to her father's kingdom. That she reigned there with justice and a kind heart for many centuries. That she was loved by her people. And that she left behind small traces of her time on Earth, visible only to those who know where to look. "

PAN'S LABYRINTH (EL LABERINTO DEL FAUNO): Guillermo del Toro's follow-up of sorts to The Devil's Backbone, this movie bills itself as a dark, high fantasy of the caliber of Lord of the Rings. Set in the aftermath of the Spanish revolution, it mixes leftist politics with supernatural presence and plucky kids, just like its predecessor. The difference is, Pan's Labyrinth's "magicality" is entirely confined to the mind of the little girl, Ofelia, who is told by a faun that she is actually Princess Moanna of the underworld. The real grown-up world is very separate from the magical child's world, and I believe this detracts from the movie. But then again, I am a little odd with children fantasy stories. I think that Bridge to Terabithia and The Last Battle of the Narnia septology have brought me to the skeptical mindset that when children envision fantasy worlds that no one besides them can see, they are either a) insane, or b) dead. This is an odd conclusion to come to for someone with a hyperactive imagination, but when I played make-believe, I never did so on my own.

Alone is precisely what Ofelia is throughout the whole movie. Her mother is a beautiful, shallow flower, her father is dead, and her stepfather is evil. Thank goodness for the maid. But given her surroundings, it's no surprise, from a clinical position, that she invents this elaborate world where she is princess and all is wonderful and peaceful. Sounds like every children's fantasy story, right? (the wretched Neverending Story comes to mind) Basically, that's what this movie is - a very typical children's fantasy. Except that here many more people die than ever did in the Neverending Story, and in more gruesome ways - by bullets, by childbirth, by overdose. The real world, that is, crashes in on the fantasy, repeatedly and terrifyingly.

It is almost hard to believe, by the end, that the same director created both movies, because The Devil's Backbone is about perseverance and endurance - who knows how far the boys will get in the desert, but they will try, and furthermore, ghosts do not leave the Earth either, but stand watch over it, haunting and righting wrongs. Pan's Labyrinth is unabashedly an escapist movie - shaking off the mortal coil in death is a relief and brings happiness - that is almost religious in principle. Yes, your life will be hard, but when you die, you will be happy. It's the kind of story that makes children look forward to death, to be frank, and there is a lot more of this in our culture than we'd like to think. The end of The Last Battle, when Aslan tells the kids that they all died in a train crash and they are now in Narnia with him forever - leading to cheers - always greatly alarmed me. Is that the message? Yay, we're dead? Or how about all those stories with an epilogue showing the slain protagonist in heaven, and the claim that this is truly a happy ending, because he is "finally at peace"? My reaction to this has always been, "That's NOT happy - he's dead - how dare you say that is a happy ending?" And I think this stems from my own experience with my father's death. It is tempting to reach for the consolation that they are happy, wherever they are, and that death is even better than life, as Gandalf tells Pippin in The Return of the King. But for me it's a hollow consolation. I'm much more a fan of the '50s woman in The Hours who abandons her family instead of committing suicide - choosing life. I think that we glorify the afterlife because we're so afraid of death. We're afraid that when we die it's going to be a final clap and then, nothing. So we teach people that death is a respite, a reward for suffering, eternal bliss where you have everything you could ever want and were denied in life. And then you get the mother in a Law & Order episode tossing her baby in a furnace because she did not want her child to experience the Evil of the world - wanted her to go straight to God, and then painted this as a good thing in front of the jury, leading to McCoy asking her, "God told you to kill your child?" Because, yes, that is what it is. Death is what it is. It's ugly and it's final. But no one, not the hospitals and not the clergy and not the entertainment industry, wants to admit that. Death is happiness. Die and be reunited with the loved ones who were unjustly taken from you. Die, and live forever. And then we wonder why people commit suicide.

We really do fear death, don't we? We shouldn't, though. As an episode of Charmed recently suggested, death is neither reward nor punishment. It's motivation to live.

The movie itself is very well done. It's always a fascination to watch, and emotional involvement is inevitable. Some of the imagery is stunning. Cinematography-wise, that is, it's excellent. As a movie about characters, plot, and the whole rest of the fiddle-faddle that makes up the "point" of the movie, however, is an old rehash that breaks no boundaries and lands squarely within the rules. - (very sadly and humbly, but I reserve a right to my opinion) Not Recommended.