Pan's Labryinth

This title came by me often and was highly recommended by some of my friends but I never gathered the time to watch it. Now, an opportunity appeared and I could watch it in school with my classmates. And watch it, I did.

So many thoughts fill my mind when trying to explain my impressions of the movie itself for it was so powerful and had so many meanings behind the movie. I have never seen a movie that had so many meanings and questions that with some friends you could have a three hour long conversation figuring out what the hell this and that meant.

The characters in Pan’s Labyrinth couldn’t have panned out any better; I loved the Captain and Ophelia the most. The Captain was so ruthless and determined that his way would work and no one would step in his path to glory. Ophelia was the queen of disobedience and was challenged to some difficult tasks throughout the movie. I was appalled to how the Captain had no pity and didn’t cringe at the things that he did. I wondered if the Captain could sleep during at nights. On the other side, I rooted for Ophelia during the movie as I willed her to complete the impossible tasks. When she had to go through the Pale Man, I nearly jumped into the movie because I wanted to help her escape from the hands-eyes man.

There were so many parallels with other sources that the audience couldn’t possibly miss. I’ll name the one that impacted me the most during the movie. The one I would like to mention is the parallel lines between the girl and the Adam-Eve story in the Bible. Ophelia ignored the advices of fairies to not eat the berries because it would awaken and enrage the Pale Man. The same thing happened in the Adam-Eve story as Adam couldn’t resist eating a fruit even though God had told him it was forbidden. In the end, both got punished as Adam got an Adam’s apple while Ophelia almost failed her mission because the fairies died, however she got lucky when the Faun gave her a second chance. Both neglected when they shouldn’t have and they paid a price for it. Sometimes, disobedience is not the answer to things.

It was the first time in my life that during a movie; I became so unnerved and annoyed. It was because of the cinematography. The colors and lightings really played a big part in the movie and its meaning. In the beginning of the movie, bright colors were presented but right after Ophelia ventured into the tree with the overweight frog in it, the movie immediately went dark all way right to the end. It reminded me of the movie, Lord of the Rings, but no I realized that Lord of the Rings had breaks from the dark part when it talked about other characters, this movie didn’t have any breaks. I felt that this element of the movie impacted me the most.

This will be a movie that I will watch repeatedly for ages to come. The reason for that is I know that every time I watch it, I will change my opinions on the movie and find different meanings. The next step for me is to buy a Pan’s Labyrinth movie and watch it again immediately.