(no subject)

Finally saw Pan's Labyrinth and we were mildly confused about all the acclaim it had had. As gnosis, it was a bit too hung up on good and evil, flirting with the paradox that the value in life consists in preserving the value in life. I think this was related to its joylessness, though doubtless the idea was that the imagination is also poisoned in evil times. The housekeeper's knowing the wordless lullaby of heaven was a beautiful touch, as was Ofelia's not having transformed the earth after death, just subliminally improved it. The girl's saving her brother, and Mercedes' concern about her boyfriend's fate, may show that the film was uneasy about its particular formula of pure altruism. I don't actually disagree with the message, just the absence of the proper nuances. An idea about what should happen that is more real than what actually happens, the true blue flower, needs the just-right context, the real garden. I think the film's self-consciousness may have something to do with the gross, virtually Saving Private Ryan level violence, and absurdly exaggerated evil of the Fascists: if evil were so pure, so pervasive, then I guess resisting it really would be the only meaning to life.

The ads made it seem like either another CGI atrocity (the CGI was actually flawless, apt) or a thoroughly visionary wandering through a packed allegorical maze-world--Carroll meets Alastor. It was still pretty ambitious, within the bounds of fundability, and on the whole very interesting. I would have loved the Bible-reversing child sacrifice choice if I hadn't been so repelled by the interest in carving and exploding Fascists by then.