Lost in Pan's Labyrinth

I saw Pan's Labyrinth tonight. I had heard a lot about the film going into it; I was told that it was a sort of dark fairy tale but I really didn't expect it to be as stark or as gory as it was. Nevertheless the violence definitely served a purpose and the film was generally brilliant.

The film is basically the story of a girl, Ofelia, who conjures up a fantasy world as an escape from the bleak reality of life in rural post-war fascist Spain of the Franco era. I really loved how the director, Guillermo Del Toro, leaves it open to the viewer's interpretation whether the fantasies conjured by the main character were real or completely imaginary. It's akin to the question of faith. He provided evidence to support both conclusions and left it ambiguous. That's exceedingly rare, most moviegoers nowadays are used to being force-fed stories and having to think or decide things for themselves might make them a little uncomfortable (you know the people who just have to know what Bill Murray whispered to Scarlett Johansson's character at the end of Lost in Translation).

I also found the film to be replete with symbolism, similar to The Fountain but the symbolism was more allegorical in Pan rather than self-referential like in The Fountain. I was also fascinated by many religious references, particularly Catholic references. Del Toro references the story of Eve and the expulsion from Eden, the sacrificing of Abraham's son as a test by God, the story of Christ and many of the film's scenes seem almost allegorical to his view of the church (or at least it seems that way from my ex-Catholic point of view). There are also many pagan symbols, fauns and earth-gods. It all leads me to believe that the movie has many more layers than what is presented on the surface.

Although the film wasn't anything like I expected I ended up really enjoying it and found myself thinking a lot about the imagery and the possible messages the director tried to convey through the symbolism. The movie is dark, it's bleak, it's gory but at the end there's a definite beauty to it too, I enjoyed it.