Pan’s Labyrinth

apr302007_pans_labyrinth.jpgWhat’s obvious to me during the watching of ‘Laberinto del fauno, El’ (Pan’s Labyrinth), is that the performance of it’s chief villain, Capitan Vidal, played magnificently by Sergi Lopez, effectively brings to life the best rendition of a movie villain I’ve ever seen.

To me, the bad guy is always the juiciest part in every film. If I were an actor wishing to prove my mettle, the surest path to this, granted I’d have the talent of course, is to avoid the hero part, which by being so automatically limits one to stereotype. Rather, one should go for the villain part, where you are allowed far more freedom and depth as you portray, explain, and define why this person has become such as he goes about his bad guy ways.

Whilst you may argue that this can be done for the hero as well, the villain, as we all know in real life villains, frequently does not come from cookie cutters like heroes do. There are many and varied ways to screw up a person and make him rotten. All colorful, usually deeply tragic, all providing excellent fodder for a qualified actor to chew on.

And here, Lopez has his breakfast, lunch and dinner, all on us. From the moment the camera first pans his lens on him as he impatiently checks his watch, annoyed at the lateness of Ofelia and Carmen (Ivana Baquero and Ariadna Gil respectively), you immediately despise him, and are assured by his very presence from then on, that the lead characters are in for a world of hurt.

All the characters are made to look over their shoulders because of him, the audience shrieks in anticipation at any possibility the protagonists get caught, and as a result, the rebels in the film may as well be wearing shining armors, as they alone promise respite from his enduring, suffocating grasp.

At this point, I realize I have been going on just about the villain, and reviewing this movie will be wanting if I neglect to discuss the other parts of this thought provoking film.

But then, what can I say about them? Ofelia’s three tasks to reclaim her throne whilst engrossing is essentially a subplot, albeit vast and grand, to the main topic of escaping and / or defeating Capitan Vidal. The effects are tremendous, and can teach a thing or two to Disney and all those Hollywood films that tend to focus on effects for the sake of effects as opposed to effective ingredients to story – telling and none more than that.

Pan is an amazing character straight out of a dream, but for most of the movie I am wondering if it is a bad or a good dream. Were Pan’s tasks a means to an end for evil or for good? At the end, we are of course, relieved to see that it was all for the positive, but never in the whole process did we have a clue that all of those things Ofelia were doing were either righteous, or she was being misled.

This leads to confusion, which essentially makes you want to go back to the more ‘real’ parts of the movie, the Spanish Army against the rebels in the mountains. I caught myself almost saying ‘ok this is all very nice, but it doesn’t make sense, and it’s almost 1am (we caught the last showing at the theatres), so let’s get back to what happens in real life.

This is disappointing, because there is real magic in those underworld scenes. The set, set design, costumes and imagery are top notch, and there is no doubt about their winning Oscars for Art Direction, Cinematography and Make Up. The monster Ofelia needs to deal with on her second act is a thing straight from hell, the worst imagery you can imagine complete with images on the wall of it eating babies (as if souvenir images from a vacation). It’s all straight out of a dream, as if the designer woke up from a nightmare and painted what he remembers directly to canvass.

But in the end, images of Lopez’ Capitan Vidal leave the longest imprint. From where he tricks Mercedes (Maribel Verdu, which I remember from ‘Y Tu Mama Tambien’) into admitting she has an extra key to their storage room, to how he shouts into the forest at his hiding enemies, bristling with pride and boast and daring them to a fight, and the lost look on his face when he realizes that his son will never know of his deeds nor even his name, he acts out the quintessential villain – the man it is so easy to hate and fear, a man whose twisted beliefs are so ingrained in him he has turned into a monster worse than that of Ophelia’s, and hence you catch yourself pining for his, and his Fascist beliefs – demise.

Pan’s Labyrinth is amazing, magical, eerie and violent. Somewhat convoluted at the end but if you think about it, so are dreams, and this movie is an excellent rendition of one.

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