Tuesday, January 16, 2007

Movie Review: Pan's Labyrinth

Do not take your kids to see this fairy tale. It focuses more on life in Franco's Spain. There's graphic murder and torture, a bloody pregnancy, and subtitles. This makes the unedited Grimm's Fairy Tales look positively Disneyish.
That said, as adults you'll enjoy this movie. Sure, there's a few scenes where you'll go "yeeeahhhch" and screw up your face but you can deal with those bits.

The story:
Way back when in a underground fairy land a princess dreamed about sun, sky, and grass. So she snuck up to the surface where the sun blinded her and took her memories. The King knew that her soul would be reborn in a new body and waited for her to return. The princess comes back in the body of a little girl whose mother has married to one of Franco's Generals. As the movie starts the girl and her mother are on the way to the General's camp where the mother is to give birth to the General's son.
In the woods surrounding the camp are rebels who are being supplied by members of the General's household staff. This makes up the bulk of the movie.

There's two ways to view this movie. One is where the girl finds the fairies, they tell her who she is and give her tasks to prove she's who they think she is.
The other is about a little girl who finds herself being sent to a horrible place with her evil stepfather who does horrible things all around her. She makes up this fantasy world that she can escape to.

Good movie but I haven't decided if I want to buy it when it comes out on DVD.

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