Movie and Television Reviews

Pan's Labyrinth is a combination political/fantasy adventure/historical, decidedly adult drama from Spain that plays like a Chronicles of Narnia for Communists. The nature of the movie forces me to separate this review into two parts: drama and politics.

Drama:

Pan's labyrinth is really two movies and their poor relationship to each other is the movie's greatest weakness. The inferior portion of the movie involves a young girl, Ofelia, who encounters a fairy on a trip to the country with her mother to meet her new stepfather. The filmmakers make it clear that all we need to know about Ofelia is that she hates her stepfather and loves her mother, fairies, and books.

In the most awesome display of credulity since Peter the apostle, Ofelia assents to a series of quests at the behest of a grotesque-looking faun for no apparent reason except her like of fantasy books and mystical creatures and the faun's insistence that she might be a princess (if fantasy books encourage such behavior towards strangers, I'm clearing out my son's bookshelf tomorrow). To be fair, the film-makers seem to realize this weakness and add details like a mole on Ofelia's shoulder to make her decision seem more reasonable, but it's still a stretch- why, for instance, does she need to prove she's a princess if she has the mole?

Providing only brief moments of suspense, Ofelia's quests are both incredibly boring and decisively unfrightening, involving a disgusting worm, and the procurement of a key from an eye-handed monster awoken by her disobedience. And, that's about it. Despite attempts at the end to make the questing relevant, the whole labyrinth plot feels superfluous. If one were to replace the faun with a next-door neighbor and take out all of the fantasy references, one would have the exact same theme, but in a more efficient package.

Ofelia's character development is as woefully lacking as the quests are uninteresting. Ofelia never wavers, barely doubts, and hardly struggles. Everything in the movie is a confirmation of her naiveness and faith.

Pan's labyrinth reincarnates the Narnian White Witch as Vidal, a cruel Army captain. Vidal and the White Witch are similar except, perhaps, that the White Witch has more depth to her character than the wholly cruel captain. Vidal tortures innocents, treats his servants and his family with the same frigid militaristic formality, and is generally a bad person, yet this co-plot is the interesting half of the movie. If you buy into the fascist-bad/Communist-good political premise, you'll find it easy to cheer for the brave servant, Mercedes, as she attempts to assist her brother in the Communist resistance, and you'll root for the Ofelia's mother as she clings to life during a difficult pregnancy.

Politics:

Pan's Labyrinth is an overtly political movie. The movie is set in Spain in 1944 with Franco's Nationalists firmly in control except for a few insurgents hiding in the mountains. The movie is as duochromatically simple as Narnia-the Right is bad and the Left is good. The film-makers don't complicate this message by mentioning Soviet involvement or the massacres of priests, nuns, and fellow Leftists at the hands of the Republicans. One realizes that when the left has a side to root for, pacifism is jettisoned as are legal niceties and moral relativism. If the actions of the heroes are to be interpreted as moral endorsement, Pan's Labyrinth holds that:

1. The evil must die-(without a trial if need be).
2. One must never give up the fight; it's better to die for a cause than survive in degraded servitude.
3. The good will be vindicated in the afterlife.
4. Religion is good, as is faith (though the religion in Pan's Labyrinth is not Christianity). Those without faith in the magical are hard-hearted.

Sounds kind of conservative, doesn't it?