movie: Pan's Labyrinth

[meganbmoore]

So, Pan's Labyrinth.  One of the more acclaimed recent movies, the one everyone was recently up in arms over not winning the Oscar's(or was it the Acandemy Awards?  I keep little track of such things but remember  a fair bit of talk on it at the time.)  This is a movie that I thought I'd love, that I expected to love, that everything I'd heard about led me to believe I'd think it one of the best things ever.  Sadly, I was barely interested enough to watch it all the way through.

I saw every twist, big and small coming.  I thought the fantastical designs good, but very underused.  Had the movie focused less on the war and more on Ofelia's adventures in the labyrinth, I suspect I would have enjoyed it much more than I did.  This is a movie that should have both enchanted and disturbed me and awoken my senses of wonder and of sorrow, yet I felt nothing. For a movie with twists and turns, there are two main approaches to take.  The first is to realize that your audience has a good chance of figuring things out ahead of time and making it about the journey, not the end.  The second is to rely on the twists, big an small, depending on the audience not seeing them coming and being captivated.  Unfortunately, when you rely on the second approach, if the audience does figure it out, the movie doesn't work half as well as it should.  For example:  I knew Ofelia would eat, and I knew what would happen when she did.  There was no suspense or tension for me that entire sequence because I knew what would happen, but it felt like it relied on me not knowing.  In addition, I knew Ofelia couldn't die with half the movie left, so I wasn't worried.

This is why I'm one of the few who vastly prefers The Illusionist to The Prestige.  In both, I figured out the twists pretty early on.  But The Illusionist makes it about how he did it and makes you want to see the end result...when you realize what he did is irrelevant.  The Prestige relies on the rivalry and the twists.  However, the rivalry also depends on the twists, and the audiences enjoyment relies heavily on figuring it out.  As a result, I love The Illusionist but only like The Prestige, and then largely because of the leads.

Had Pan's Labyrinth taken the approach of an eery take on well loved tradition and myth, with the story about getting to the end you knew was coming, instead of relying on suspense and twists, I suspect I would have loved it.  Instead, the only level it really worked for me on is visually, and even then only in the fantasy department.  

That said, this is a step up(multiple steps, actually) from the last movie I expected to love but didn't, One Night With the King.  I only made it about 25 minutes into that...then it was just background noise as I listened for the throne room scene to see how that was done.  That, at least, was a good scene.  Didn't compensate for the rest of what I saw and heard, but hey... 

ETA:  Forgot to say: All that said I CAN see why so many loved it as it wasn't a bad movie by any means, this is just about why it didn't work for me. 

Comments

[southerndave.livejournal.com]

"the Oscar's(or was it the Academy Awards?"

I'm not particularly clued up on the movies, but isn't it that the Oscars are the Academy Awards?

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

As I pay little attention to those awards shows as most movies that end up there seem to be made to try to win the award, as opposed to tell stories, it's entirely possible I got the second name wrong. There are 2, though, and one is the Oscars.

[wistfulmemory.livejournal.com]

The Academy Awards is the official name of the award ceremony. The Oscars is the nickname of the statue that is given to the winners and is used as a second name for the ceremony.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

*bows down to the one with greater knowledge*

So, what's ther other awards show? I'm positive there are 2...

I knew there was a reason I should pay attention to such things.

[magicnoire.livejournal.com]

Emmys, which are for TV. There's a primetime and daytime version.

Golden Globes -- I thnk those are both movies and TV.

There's also the Screen Actor's Guild Awards, but I'm not sure what those are for.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

I think Golden Globes would be what I was thinking of.

I view my friends-both online and RL, as better critics and awards nominators than the ones who get paid for it. They tend to look at it for enjoyment, rather than to pick it apart, but my bit.

Just FYI

[winterspel.livejournal.com]

The Golden Globers are voted on by members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association and are often viewed as a joke due to the lax rules, etc. The Academy Awards (or "Oscars") have very strict rules, and awards are voted on by members of the Academy, and for some categories, like Directing, they can only be voted on by members of that branch of the academy, which largely means by other directors. In any case, the Oscars are awards granted (generally speaking) by the film community while the GG are press-based. Which is why I don't pay any attention to the GG at all and I do pay attention to the Oscars (at least a little) since many of the voters are or were involved in the actual process of filmmaking.

Personally, I tend to find reviewers whose taste coincides most closely with my own, and I watch films that intrigue me and make up my own mind. Even depending on friends/family doesn't always work because my taste is quite independent! :)

To go back to the original topic of your post: I did like 'Pan's Labyrinth' (http://winterspel.livejournal.com/238987.html), although I can understand why you did not.

Re: Just FYI

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

I can easily see why it was so popular, and why many love it, it just didn't work for me. Part of the problem was that with that first voiceover, my head went "yeah, and I'll bet she *whistles for everyone reading this who hasn't seen the movie* to get there" because that's what happened every other time. I think I have simply seen and read too much period and fantasy stuff(I've been saturating myself with both since I was about 8...) to properly appreciate a movie that seems geared to people who aren't familiar with it, or at least, as familiar.

I tend to read/listen to the reviews of friends and family and listen for things where we usually agree, and be more cautious about things where we may not always agree. This is one of the rare occassions where that didn't work out for me, even though I can see why it's loved, and why it was thought that I'd love it(a huge chunk of my LJ is a testament to why people would rec it to me, really)

And thanks for the awards info.

[winterspel.livejournal.com]

The Screen Actors Guild Awards are the acting awards that the actors vote on exclusively for acting skill in film/tv, etc. - if you act in U.S. productions, you have to belong to the actors' union (Screen Actors Guild) which helps guarantee pay scales among many other things, so only members vote for these awards. A way to honor their own community.

[lesbiassparrow.livejournal.com]

I really liked this film myself. I just found the fantasy world so clever and interesting and terrifying. and I thought the girl who was the lead was an astounding actress. The one thing that really astounded me was the level of violence - I wasn't expecting it even though I knew the plot details.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

It was well acted overall, really. Though I often though Vidal was channeling Jason Isaacs from The Patriot. Which kinda made the violence less surprising once I'd done the mental comparison.

It's just that all the themes and plot elements were things I'd seen many times before, but it wasn't (to me) approached as something well known and loved being recounted, and so it didn't work. While the fantasy world reminded me somewhat of an earthier Mirrormask(also? I SWEAR that faun fondled himself at one point) I think I would have liked the movie more if it'd focused more on that and less on the war.

[magicnoire.livejournal.com]

We share the same brain.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

Thought there was someone on my list who didn't like this but couldn't remember who. The sad thing is that I can point at oh-so-many things as being something that, hed they changed to focus on that or played differently, i would have liked it more.

Our of curiosity, have you seen The Illusionist and The Prestige.

[magicnoire.livejournal.com]

I have, and I also prefer The Illusionist more.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

YAY! I'm not alone in this!

The thing about the Illusionist is that it has its twists, and while they add to it, they aren't what's important. It's not important if she's alive or dead, or if he knows it or not. What matters is that he came back to destroy the other guy and that was what he did. You weren't watching to see if he would, or to see if he got the girl, you were eatching to see how he got there. The Prestige was more about what the truth was, and I figured it out way to early(with Bale I suspected with the memory loss and then something I forget soon after cemented it. With Jackman ir was the lightbulbs or the hats, whichever came first)

[chomiji]

I heard that Pan's Labyrinth was simply incredibly grim, and so I wasn't planning to watch it at all. What's your take on that? You don't mention that aspect of it, so maybe it's all in the eye of the beholder ... .

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

Hmm...it was grim, yes, but a lot of it felt forced to me. More telling than showing. Since I saw it all coming, I didn't notice it as much and, aside from one or two visuals, it didn't concern me, and even that was just "ew, don't look."

[alexandral.livejournal.com]

I loved the movie but mostly for it's visuals, proverbiness (is this a valid word :D) and very interesting interpretation of many Christian themes. I don't think the twists were supposed to be really "twisty", it was more about the internal then about external..

This to say the movie that won this year's foreign language Oscar (German "The lives of others") is truly one of the best films of all times and one of the movies that IMHO will be never forgotten..

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

I liked the visuals quite a bit-they reminded me of an earthier Mirrormask(a movie all about the visuals that never pretends to be otherwise). Most of the rest, though, I'd simply seen far, far too many times to be properly impressed by. As I mentioned in an above comment, I figure out the ending in the first 5 minutes...there were a number of small twists, but I saw them all as they were coming. I just knew what would happen plot point by plot point too well to ever really be impressed, sadly.

But I can see why it's so popular, it just didn't work for me.