It may take me a few days and a repeated viewing to determine how good El Laberinto del Fauno or Pan’s Labyrinth was. The set-up to the viewing wasn’t optimal as we rushed to one theatre by foot to find it had closed the night before, then hopped a cab to the Soho Curzon (as much an upscale bar as a theatre) to catch a later showing through busy Picadilly traffic. Gabe spent much of the film with his head down to shield him from the violence, the majority of it coming from the hands of a sadistic Spanish captain. This is not a kids film and had I known more about it, I would have seen it by myself.
Guillermo del Toro‘s arresting visuals are amazing and the reviews are proclaiming it a masterpiece.
(Still photo from the IMDB website.)
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1 Troy // 12 Dec 2006 at 15:10
I read an interview with Del Toro in which he mentioned that he’d seen his first corpse at the age of 4 and witnessed atrocities such as shootings during his childhood. He used his imagination as an escape, and that’s why he’s drawn to this type of story. Given his childhood, I’m guessing that The Devil’s Backbone and Cronos, two of my favorite GdT films, are very personal to him.
I cannot wait to see this one! I think it gets its US release on 12/29/2006.
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