Rogue for "Beer"

[ddoss]

Last week my lovely wife and I took in our second movie in a short time, the decidedly different "Pan's Labyrinth." It is a Spanish movie, with English subtitled. Oddly enough it makes the dystopian science fiction "Children of Men" look downright cheerful. That might be an overstatement, but not by much. It is a very good movie, though. It is

Comments

[bebemochi]

Brian and I saw Pan's Labyrinth on Friday! I really liked it. I loved how all the creatures were fascinating yet sort of revolting. I've read a lot of reviews praising it to the high heavens, but...well, I don't think it was this life-changing movie. It was an excellent movie. I think people are just shocked nowadays when a movie shows a little bit of intelligence, takes some risks, doesn't pander to the lowest common denominator.

[ddoss]

When you think about it, the little girl found those horrors in fairy-land more tolerable than the horrors she faced in reality... That is truly what I took away from it as the overall theme. But I agree, it does get an amount of praise just for the sake of being thoughful and just good. I also like that it presents the grim side of fairy-tales, instead of the prettied-up Disney versions. There is a place for the Disney versions, this one would give a young child nightmares. But here there is acknowledgement that a lot of the traditional fairy tales have very old and dark roots.

[bebemochi]

I'm fond of media that probes the roots of fairy tales and the darkness that's often present there. I think a lot of fairy tales were originally meant to scare children (into being good, haha).
Although this clearly isn't a movie for kids, it reminds me of Miyazaki films to an extent, in that he isn't scared to show the unpleasant truths and fictions. I think a lot of the reason I don't like Disney is because everything is too pat. Even in fairy tales, the Little Mermaid dies, Icarus' wings melt in the sunshine, Little Red Riding Hood is at first consumed by the wolf. There's none of that in Disney movies. You can rest assured that everything will be okay. I know some people prefer that, but I'm not one of them.