Truth twenty-four times a second, #2

Even though Pan's Labyrinth was playing last week at out local multiplex along with a bunch of other Oscar-nominated films, we decided to see The Departed there, and waited until it opened at our local Art theatre in town. I can safely say, it was worth the wait and then some. Volver was good, as was The Departed (even though I still prefer Infernal Affairs, the original Hong Kong version). This movie was fantastic, easily the best movie from last year that I've seen (I missed too many to have any right to talk about "the best movie of the year" in general). First though, just to get this out of the way, the advertising for the movie is a bit deceptive; even though the lead actress was 11 during the filming, the level of violence and mature themes (not sex, in this case, just themes one needs to have some maturity in order to process) basically rules this movie out for pre-teens and younger. That said, on to the actual review.

Pan's Labyrinth, as best noted by Stephanie Zacharek of Salon, is a fairy tale in the classic sense: not a happy children's story, but a much darker morality tale that serves as an introduction to life's horrors and moral quandaries. Set in 1944 Spain, as Franco and the fascists were cementing their hold over the country, the movie tells the parallel tale of a young girl dealing with a dark fantasy world (which one could argue is her figurative take on her actual surroundings), while those around her deal with the more mundane horrors of warfare without the benefit of a runaway imagination to soften the edges. Guillermo del Toro, the director, does a masterful job of blending the real with the fantastic, both visually and in the storytelling itself. If some characters are more starkly evil, it is because they serve as the negative counterexample that every fairy tale requires. Good in this approach is more layered, full of failings but made noble by its decency and humanity.

Refreshingly, this is anything but a Hollywood movie, able to surprise you by its twists and turns. It's primary lesson, that you cannot blindly follow orders and must instead act as you think is right, is not treated as a simple concept to be learned but rather one that is nearly impossible to achieve. Throughout, no one is allowed innocence; neither a child being forced to deal much too early with an adult world nor the adults who must constantly balance betraying their principles in the short run in order to maintain them in the grander scheme, often at terrible cost. If anything, the movie's harshest condemnation is not just for the embodiments of evil, but also for a society that blindly watches as third parties are caught up in the crossfire (several hundred thousand Iraqis might be able to comment on this topic if they hadn't been killed over the past few years).

Of course, to focus merely on the lesson is to give short shrift to the telling: this is a movie of gorgeous images, masterful pacing, and a not inconsiderable dose of magic. Much like City of God, it is much too engrossing to be considered depressing, capable of transporting you like great storytelling can. I can't recommend it highly enough.