If anybody is an avid reader of my blog (which I highly doubt), you'll know that I do enjoy the occasional gory movie (see several posts back). But I do have to say that the gory elements of Pan's Labyrinth were excessive and almost unnecessary. First off: this is not an official review of the film. If it were I'd be talking about many other things, but for this entry, I just want to address my issue with the violent images in this "adult fairytale."
Perhaps the filmmakers didn't think adults would go see a "fairytale" if they weren't really secure in the knowledge that it wasn't just a kids movie, so they poured it on a little thick. Any person who gets shot throughout the film gets shot a minimum of two extra times after they're dead. A man gets stabbed with a knife into his open mouth. An innocent man hunting rabbits gets his face pulverized by glass bottle. I just don't feel these were anything more than gratuitous elements in an otherwise non-gratuitous film.I will say I was positively floored by the effects wizards behind the stitches scene. I have absolutely no idea how they were able to show a man giving himself stitches in the mouth all in one unflinching take. Slightly hard to watch (the audience at Liberty Hall was squirming), but simply amazing film making.
Whether or not the events involving the Faun really took place or not will be addressed in a later post on here (when I have nothing better to talk about), but as for now I just don't see why Pan's Labyrinth needed the level of gore it contained-- not because I was offended or because I "couldn't take it," but because it just seemed unjustified and out of place with the rest of the film. Anyone who disagrees, feel free to post a response... :)
1 comment:
I don't agree with you. *gasp*
I think the violence was completely justified and almost necessary.
In order for Ofelia to need to escape the world she lives in, in order for her escape through her death in the end to work...the "real" world had to be gory, violent and unbearable.
The filmmakers did an excellent job of showing the Captain's brutality and inhuman (and inhumane) tendencies. The squirm-worthiness of the stitches scene just further proves his psychopathology (is that a word? ;-)) and I don't think the movie would be the same without it.
(And it was nice to have an excuse to clutch the hand of the guy next to me! ;-))
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