I planned on wasting time when I caught it on TV. I thought it was terrific. I knew nothing about it and was surprised.
I am flat out convinced that some people don’t care for good movies.
Whether or not you liked the story, it was a well made movie. I happened to like it myself. IMHO, Guillermo Del Toro has mastered the art of making good movies.
A lot of people don’t like good movies. That’s why Hollywood makes so much money churning out crappy ones for them.
I saw it more as an escapist fantasy with the real world and the make believe world colliding at the very end but I like your interpretation much, much better. It really makes perfect sense, thank you.
I agree. TMFE wasn’t my *worst *movie experience this year, but only because I’ve seen some truly dreadful films lately. It ranks though, it ranks.
Yeah, but a “well made movie” with a story you don’t like is usually not a good movie. That was my problem with “Pan’s Labyrinth” - the production values were terrific, the story not so much. It’s too long since I saw it to precisely remember my objections (something about the gratuitous fantasy scenes, I think?), but I saw it twice in the theaters just to make sure I wasn’t missing anything. I wasn’t. I’m glad that “The Lives of Others” beat it for the Foreign Language Oscar.
I’m surprised how many people here admit to not caring for it - my recollection at the time was that EVERYONE (on this board, in real life) loved it and I was just the odd man out. If opinion is now split maybe history is slowly validating my opinion?? :dubious:
FTR, I also didn’t get (but didn’t particularly hate) “Spirited Away”, and I thought “Avatar” was mostly terrible. So either I just don’t get some fantasy films, or other people are way more swayed by good looking films with weak stories than I am. 
Nope. It’s a pretty close to flawless movie that works on a number of levels without ever losing its focus. It’s a pretty astonishing accomplishment. But no movie is for everyone. Pan’s Labyrinth requires more than average viewer participation, but all efforts are rewarded. For an interesting window through some of those layers, try watching it with Del Toro’s commentary track turned on. Every little detail is carefully planned and perfectly executed. It’s one of the densest films ever to achieve such mainstream success.
I might do that. I’d be interested to learn what so many people see in this movie. It’s clearly just not one I respond to on some level, but the commentary might teach me to appreciate more aspects of it.
BUT…for whatever small, unscientific worth it might be, opinion of the film as expressed on these boards has definitely cooled. A scan of the original thread shows near universal agreement that it was a masterpiece. Four years later, this thread is split between people who think it’s a masterpiece, people who think it’s good, and people who don’t care for it. My prediction is that it will always be pretty well regarded, but will start dropping off people’s list and a decade or two hence its flaws will be all the more apparent. (It will age way better than “Avatar” though, because Del Toro’s a much better filmmaker than Cameron.) I’ll see if the commentary changes my mind.
The part I latched onto was the ambiguity of the fantasy but also what this meant in terms of death for the characters, the deaths of the captain and Ofelia were to me the difference between heaven and hell (this is my own theory, by the way, so it’s very likely that it wasn’t intended by the film maker).
Ofelia is shot and left dying and begins to have her vision of the underworld with herself as the princess passing the test and coming home, and everyone applauding her return. There’s two explanations, either it’s real, in which case she effectively goes to heaven (joins her father, mother and becomes the third of the holy triad), or it’s just a hallucination brought on by death, in which case it’s the last thing she sees and she dies happy.
The captain had led his entire life driven by the story of his father and the stopped watch and the most important thing to him was to have a son to pass his name and legacy on to. His last moment was kneeling in front of crowd of people who despised him, being told that his wish wouldn’t be fulfilled as the child would never even know that he existed, before being shot and going into darkness.
Whether you believe in the fantasy elements of the film it’s a fantastic allegory of the rewards for a good and evil life carrying over into the afterlife (or lack of one if you don’t believe in such a thing, as I don’t).
You’re not the only one to read that into it. That’s how I’d sum it up as well. (though not as eloquently).
She died a hero and happy regardless of the truth of her fantasy world.
An innocent child was rescued, and an evil ended. As “happy” an ending as was possible.
I also saw that the “good” people did not care about the child’s background. The evils of the father were not visited on the son. I found that part profoundly moving.
Now excuse me…I have something in my eye.
I go with the sad ending. The fantasy world created by the little girl was her way of coping with a bad situation. A cruel step-father, a sick mother, and a vicious little civil war that had not quite come to an end. When she laid there dying she coped with it by retreating into her little fantasy world. It was depressing. Of course the ending wasn’t all bleak, as others have pointed out her little brother will continue to live and won’t be raised by his cruel father. I thought Pan’s Labyrinth was an excellent movie.
It was a “Meh.” ending when it was the end of A.I., and it was just as meh here, IMO.
Oh, ummm, spoilers, I guess.
I don’t really get this comparison. The ending to AI…
…on the surface was sappy “happy” ending for David, but really showed him to be horrifyingly selfish and cruel in essentially destroying that woman’s eternal soul (or whatever) for a few more hours of hugs. The end part is not a happy reunion before dying, it’s a twisted horror of selfish, one-dimensional, superficial “love.” I have come to see the ending of this movie as more complex than many (or I, originally) gave it credit for.
I agree with many others here about the ending to Pan’s Labyrinth (heaven/hell, fascism, etc.). Brilliant and beautiful film that still affects me every time I see it, which is pretty rare for me.
Can’t say it any better than that. One of my favourites. I’m so glad del Toro is doing The Hobbit.
I love the movie. But…
…sometimes people have different tastes.
I didn’t much care for the film- too dark, etc. But it was well-made.
Count me in as one who loved it. The violent parts made me cringe, the villain was shudder-inducing, the scene with the Pale Man was creepy as hell, and the ending was both triumphant and devastating. One of my favorite foreign films.
Right. Some have a taste for crappy movies. Some prefer quality. I actually appreciate both, but I’m special.