amy- More Than Just, Pan's Labyrinth (Part I)

Every time I have watched Pan’s Labyrinth, I have had a different reaction. I first watched it on my own and I think the violence of it all was hard for me to swallow. I have watched violent movies before, but the unexpected magnitude shocked me. The second time just left an aching inside of me which I could not objectively examine. These first viewings must be under the category of “experiential knowledge.” Intellectually, this third viewing was a gem. I found myself picking out ideas and concepts which were hidden behind the physically horrible acts. For me, the metaphor of “believing in fairy-tales” is made explicitly clear. Overall, the movie is dark, but the ending of the movie shows the director’s true opinion on life and the storyline. A skeptic would examine Ophelia’s death as the silly death of a child’s imagination gone rampant. Is that not what most of us wish to do: write this off as a dark fairy tale? Sure, we bought into it during the movie, but in reality it’s all hype and computer animation. And yet that viewpoint completely destroys the integrity of the film. This film shows the beautiful faith and belief in childhood. It shows the aromatic innocence of youth who do not hesitate at believing what is told to them. This world is so foreign to a child that all is magic, which is why we must never betray their trust. The film sets up the adults in the film as having lost all sense of magic in their “grown-up world.” Even the adults who have the most integrity get their hands dirty in compromise and violence. The mother marries a man for security in times of unrest and all those participating in the war end up with blood on their hands. I think the director purposefully shows those adults whom Ophelia trusts rejecting the idea of magic. Her mother and her caretaker both reject the idea of any truth behind the fairy tales. One could argue in defense of these older men and women, but ultimately I think it would go stale. Ophelia’s faith and belief are supposed to be rewarded as golden. What a marvelous theme.