12.21.06
Pan’s Labyrinth
I saw the brilliant and recently awarded Pan’s Labyrinth at an early preview on Monday this week. While it was nothing like I had expected, it was brilliant, surprisingly touching and visually arresting in a way that seems rarer and rarer these days.
There are some simalarities in tone and setting to Director Guillermo del Toro’s previous film The Devil’s Backbone, which is almost a recommendation in itself, however it takes a different tack in exploring post Civil-war Spain through the concept of fairies and fauns, rather than the ghost-centric Devil’s Backbone. What was particularly impressive to me was what felt like an effortless mastery of the cinematic adage “show, don’t tell” - there were many points from early on that entire characterisations were achieved with little more than a look, a gesture or a word from the characters, which draws the viewer in rapidly and completely. This grounding in storytelling craft is probably what allows the film to then strike off onto wild fantastic tangents without losing momentum or making the audience lose interest in the “real world” story. Truly brilliant stuff, seek it out if it plays in a cinema near you.