Tue, 30 Jan 2007
Well, of course Angie was exactly right in her prediction. But no one guessed what would've made me lower the score, then (maybe) raise it back up again. Well, I'll tell you in a minute. First, the recap:
Great movie. The plot? Well, think of it as an adult fairy tale. Well, I mean, think of it as a fairy tale for grown ups.
An "adult" fairy tale would be one starring me and Maribel Verdu, Paz Vega, and Salma Hayek. . . or me re-making
Belle Epoque, with me and . . .oh well, you get the picture (not that you'd want that picture in your head).
The story's about a young girl and her mom who go to live in the mountains to be with her new dad, who's a captain of a division of soldiers in a region trying to stamp out the last of the
maquis (the guerrillas). The evil step-
motherfather is played by
Sergi Lopez who
rules yet again. (I hope he gets out of being the "bad guy" all the time.) The young girl loves the escapism of her books which allows her to occupy her mind instead of focusing on "new dad" and how her preggo-mom is not doing well at all. Fortunately she has the chief house maid (mmmmMaribel Verdu) to watch out for her.
[Dude, what's up with Guillermo's fascination with that war? I know it's a rich source of conflict and story but seriously- is his family from there? I know he's from Guadalajara, but he does use a "del" last name which is more of a "snobby" Spanish thing to do. . . . I'll have to look that up.]
Anyway. . . the movie quickly establishes that the
evil step-mom, queen Capitan is insanely bad in some violent scenes. I didn't expect the violence -- I thought this movie would be just like The Devil's Backbone, scary but not violent. So, the new dad's bad, mom's sick,
Cinderella the chief house maid is busy a lot with her clandestine trips up to help the rebels. . . so the little girl is off on her own adventures pretty quickly.
I don't want to keep recapping the film, so let's just say, Girl has adventures with the Fantasy-land creatures, chief maid is busy, the captain's bad, and mom's getting worse. It all eventually comes together, and it's not too shocking when it does, but things wrap up nicely despite the use of the literary device that I'm not fond of in movies:
the frame tale. But hey, it works out here. Why do I hate that? I'm not sure. Sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn't.
But you know what saves the movie (aside from the sheer meanness of Sergi)? The way it's open to interpretation. Little things that link it to a Campbell-esque "greater myth". That's kind of why I'm being a smartass about calling mmmMaribel "Cinderella", The Captain "The Beast" (to the little girl's "Beauty")-- actually, I take that back, Pan would be the Beast, The Capt. could be the evil-stepmom, the evil queen, etc. [He even has a mirror reminiscent of Snow White, and a symbolic watch to boot]
That said, the film teetered a bit close to the edge because of the above, and given it's openness and frame tale, that's why I almost docked it 3 stars. Yeah, really. I almost thought it was overrated too. There's a tendency to cut more slack for or glamorize (feticize?) "foreign" flicks (including by yours truly) and I was a bit worried about that but I let it slide this time. It's a great movie. It has a good story, it's filmed well, and it's entertaining. It's everything I like about Cinema.
random notes:
Seriously, the movie's gory at times. Angie and her work-husband were cringing a lot. But then again, they were the ones who were drinking large cokes. . .
And yes, it was after the Civil War in Spain- which, although tragic, isn't as long as people think. Yes, bad things lingered on, I'm not arguing that. Good setting though. Lots of material to pick for background stories. Maybe that's why del Toro uses it?
There's a song that the Captain plays on his phonograph. I'm trying to find the name of it. It's a "hit" from the early 30's (in the UK and Spain). The weird thing- I knew that song because when I was in India last year, Abdul "The Transporter", had the Hindi version of the song on his cell phone as the outbound ring -- eg, whenever you call him on your phone, what you hear is that song. It got to the point that I was whistling that song all the time and my coworkers kept asking me how I knew that old tune.
You should rent The Devil's Backbone if you haven't seen it.
30 Jan 22:15 | /movies | 5 comment(s)
zzzzzzz...
Five stars? Ok, wait... "adult fairy tale".. no way this is better than "Sleeping Booty"... wait, keep reading... so long.. so boring.. where am I?
01/31/2007 10:56:12
"Seriously, the movie's gory at times. Angie and her work-husband were cringing a lot. But then again, they were the ones who were drinking large cokes. . ." ---- i seriously had to pee over half the movie. but yeah it was gory. and oh yeah, cory's an ass (see above.)
01/31/2007 11:46:07
I've never even heard of this movie. I live under a rock. But it's a pretty rock, I swear.
01/31/2007 18:20:29
I only need to see Pan's Labyrinth to complete the wonderful work by the three Mexican directors this year....was amazed by City of Men and Babel....both of which were thought provoking and very original.....and amazing performances.
02/01/2007 12:48:30
ol Captn sure hated that kid's choice in wine
02/14/2007 21:50:19
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