I have the feeling that after I read your forthcoming review of Blow Out, I may be possibly engaging in the same activity.
Movies: The Official "Movie of the Week" Club Thread III
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KallioWeHardlyKnewYe
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- May 30, 2003
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Nah, Jesus, no. It's not going to be a long debate; I'm not interested in De Palma enough to prolong it. While I got nothing to add, I am curious what VD comes up with.
Ralph Spoilsport
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- Jun 4, 2011
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Take Ferris Bueller's Day Off and drop it into the 'hood, and you have the essence of Friday. Except instead of planning trips to the gallery and lunch at a fancy upscale restaurant, our boys are parking themselves on the porch with $200 of bud. But it's the same struggle to take things easy.
There's something about Ice Cube's act that makes me uncomfortable. From NWA, who I always thought were clowns (what street tough rapper drops the word "chickety" into his rhymes? No, give me Public Enemy...at least flavor Flav knows he's a clown) through movies like Friday, Cube seems fine with selling the most unfavourable attributes of his culture as mass entertainment. Aren't the characters in Friday the same type of negative stereotypes that Hollywood Shuffle condemns (albeit west coast versions)? A hundred years ago that would probably be called cooning, except coons were Afro-American performers entertaining strictly Euro-American audiences, while Ice Cube's core audience is his own peeps. I assume. This makes all the difference, I guess. Otherwise, wouldn't there be howls of protest? Or perhaps I should lighten up (and light up): I can imagine Speed and Tyrone of Hollywood Shuffle's "Sneakin' in da movies" giving Friday a serious high five. Full of stereotypes 'n shit, but it was live.
Friday has some good things going for it. Have to admit it is unpretentious, with Cube giving asides to the camera when characters say something too stupid for belief, and low-budget title designs that seem inspired by 70s sitcoms. Chris Tucker, whom I normally loathe, is not only bearable but has a few genuinely funny moments. And hey, isn't that future If Beale Street Could Talk Oscar winner Regina King as a young hottie…that was a treat. I especially liked the care that went into recreating the low-rent squalor of the homes. That ceramic duck on the bookshelf, for instance, made me laugh as much as anything else.
To be fair to Ice Cube, here he is on a good day:
There's something about Ice Cube's act that makes me uncomfortable. From NWA, who I always thought were clowns (what street tough rapper drops the word "chickety" into his rhymes? No, give me Public Enemy...at least flavor Flav knows he's a clown) through movies like Friday, Cube seems fine with selling the most unfavourable attributes of his culture as mass entertainment. Aren't the characters in Friday the same type of negative stereotypes that Hollywood Shuffle condemns (albeit west coast versions)? A hundred years ago that would probably be called cooning, except coons were Afro-American performers entertaining strictly Euro-American audiences, while Ice Cube's core audience is his own peeps. I assume. This makes all the difference, I guess. Otherwise, wouldn't there be howls of protest? Or perhaps I should lighten up (and light up): I can imagine Speed and Tyrone of Hollywood Shuffle's "Sneakin' in da movies" giving Friday a serious high five. Full of stereotypes 'n shit, but it was live.
Friday has some good things going for it. Have to admit it is unpretentious, with Cube giving asides to the camera when characters say something too stupid for belief, and low-budget title designs that seem inspired by 70s sitcoms. Chris Tucker, whom I normally loathe, is not only bearable but has a few genuinely funny moments. And hey, isn't that future If Beale Street Could Talk Oscar winner Regina King as a young hottie…that was a treat. I especially liked the care that went into recreating the low-rent squalor of the homes. That ceramic duck on the bookshelf, for instance, made me laugh as much as anything else.
To be fair to Ice Cube, here he is on a good day:
Ralph Spoilsport
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Dear friends, I'm sad to say this will be my last post here for awhile. I'm going to side-step the DePalma debate and take a sabbatical from to focus on some other stuff. Need a new gig, dig? Yes, apparently there's more to life than hockey and movies...who knew?
Be back as soon as I can. Cheers. And no Hulot while I'm away!
Be back as soon as I can. Cheers. And no Hulot while I'm away!
Of course there is more to life than hockey and movies....there's TENNIS. Er, anyway....Hope the change of focus will refresh you but that you will return to this thread sooner rather than later as your commentary will be very much missed in your absence. It's been a pleasure reading you.
Pranzo Oltranzista
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- Oct 18, 2017
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I missed the first part(s) of the De Palma debates, but here's a short take on Blow Out's interest.
The problem is not disliking De Palma, it's the hyperbolic rant going to lengths of "nothing to think about" and "no depth whatsoever" or "masterbatory" and "garden-variety/weightless beyond belief/superficial". At some point, it feels like overcompensation and I just don't understand why some directors invite this kind of responses (Godard is another one who often suffers from similar harassment). I'll admit wholeheartedly that Blow Up! is a masterpiece, charm, tone, it's a beautiful film and my favorite by an amazing director. What makes it absolutely brilliant, to me, are two scenes: the body in the park at night and, of course, the whole ending - and more precisely the camera movement following the invisible ball. There's a whole thesis to be written on the reflexivity at play here, but to make it really short (and pertinent to what De Palma does in Blow Out), the interaction of (first) Antonioni's camera and (then) David Hemmings' character with the absent tennis ball not only puts to doubt the existence of the body and the whole murder scheme and brings forth the distanciation necessary to rethink Blow Up! itself as a film object, but is a demonstration that photographic (and here filmic) representation can function without concrete link to the recorded object - and thus the tennis game, without a ball or rackets, can be heard, disavowing the normally acknowledged construct of this type of representation (recording the 'real'). Other elements in the film go in that direction too, for example the link that is made at some point between the blown up photography and the pointillist paintings.
And then comes De Palma with a film that rightaway presents itself as an intertext and a variation on a previous work and as a movie about moviemaking (again, I'm a sucka for reflexivity and intertextuality and there's enough material just on this to make me love the film). There's two quests in Blow Out: like the David Hemmings character, John Travolta investigates a murder that he might have witness through fortuitous recording ; and there's a much more interesting quest to record the perfect scream for a banal horror film (not that the main quest isn't interesting in itself, containing references to different real-life events, mainly to the Kennedy assassination, both through allusions and reference to the Zapruder film and filmic allusion to Winter Kills - enough to feed the political reading of the film the spectator is ultimately invited into). Here distanciation comes at the very beginning with the cut to Travolta commenting on the film within the film's scream and the spectator is invited right away to understand De Palma's film as a construct (scenes of recording, editing and projection work that way too). Blow Out, contrary to Body Double, doesn't go to campy extremes to make sure to void the film's realism, but it is still built on borrowings from other works - even De Palma's - and of course some of it feels like caricature, John Lightgow's character is a caricature of Bond's Red Grant. Skip to the brilliant ending. Opposite to Blow Up!, where the non-presence of a tennis ball suddenly puts a halt to the realism of what appeared like a serious investigation into a murder (inviting the spectator to reconsider the film as a construct), Blow Out's final scream injects reality into what was presented as a borderline ridiculous horror film (inviting the spectator to reconsider the film - that was overtly presented as a construct - as a discourse, if only ponctual, on reality - and on its representation, of course). Here, it's the pointillist painting that is granted a concrete link to the recorded object. It is done with cynicism, and probably mainly an exercise in variation, but it still is brilliant.
The problem is not disliking De Palma, it's the hyperbolic rant going to lengths of "nothing to think about" and "no depth whatsoever" or "masterbatory" and "garden-variety/weightless beyond belief/superficial". At some point, it feels like overcompensation and I just don't understand why some directors invite this kind of responses (Godard is another one who often suffers from similar harassment). I'll admit wholeheartedly that Blow Up! is a masterpiece, charm, tone, it's a beautiful film and my favorite by an amazing director. What makes it absolutely brilliant, to me, are two scenes: the body in the park at night and, of course, the whole ending - and more precisely the camera movement following the invisible ball. There's a whole thesis to be written on the reflexivity at play here, but to make it really short (and pertinent to what De Palma does in Blow Out), the interaction of (first) Antonioni's camera and (then) David Hemmings' character with the absent tennis ball not only puts to doubt the existence of the body and the whole murder scheme and brings forth the distanciation necessary to rethink Blow Up! itself as a film object, but is a demonstration that photographic (and here filmic) representation can function without concrete link to the recorded object - and thus the tennis game, without a ball or rackets, can be heard, disavowing the normally acknowledged construct of this type of representation (recording the 'real'). Other elements in the film go in that direction too, for example the link that is made at some point between the blown up photography and the pointillist paintings.
And then comes De Palma with a film that rightaway presents itself as an intertext and a variation on a previous work and as a movie about moviemaking (again, I'm a sucka for reflexivity and intertextuality and there's enough material just on this to make me love the film). There's two quests in Blow Out: like the David Hemmings character, John Travolta investigates a murder that he might have witness through fortuitous recording ; and there's a much more interesting quest to record the perfect scream for a banal horror film (not that the main quest isn't interesting in itself, containing references to different real-life events, mainly to the Kennedy assassination, both through allusions and reference to the Zapruder film and filmic allusion to Winter Kills - enough to feed the political reading of the film the spectator is ultimately invited into). Here distanciation comes at the very beginning with the cut to Travolta commenting on the film within the film's scream and the spectator is invited right away to understand De Palma's film as a construct (scenes of recording, editing and projection work that way too). Blow Out, contrary to Body Double, doesn't go to campy extremes to make sure to void the film's realism, but it is still built on borrowings from other works - even De Palma's - and of course some of it feels like caricature, John Lightgow's character is a caricature of Bond's Red Grant. Skip to the brilliant ending. Opposite to Blow Up!, where the non-presence of a tennis ball suddenly puts a halt to the realism of what appeared like a serious investigation into a murder (inviting the spectator to reconsider the film as a construct), Blow Out's final scream injects reality into what was presented as a borderline ridiculous horror film (inviting the spectator to reconsider the film - that was overtly presented as a construct - as a discourse, if only ponctual, on reality - and on its representation, of course). Here, it's the pointillist painting that is granted a concrete link to the recorded object. It is done with cynicism, and probably mainly an exercise in variation, but it still is brilliant.
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Spring in Fialta
A malign star kept him
Jevo
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Take care. You are always welcome back.
And don't worry, I'll make sure not to pick any Hulot movies, and I'm quite sure Kihei will do the same.
KallioWeHardlyKnewYe
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- May 30, 2003
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Blue Velvet (1988) Directed by David Lynch
Blue Velvet starts out looking like it is going to be an erotic thriller/coming of age movie, but it is clear pretty quickly that director David Lynch has a lot of other fish to fry as well: like examining just how ugly the hidden underbelly of middle-class, small-town America can be. Throw in a healthy dose of Lynch's off-kilter but endlessly fertile imagination and you get a movie that's extremely hard to forget. The focus is on straight-shooter Jeffrey (Kyle MacLachlin), who through circumstance gets involved with Dorothy (Isabella Rossellini) an older woman who has the all-time psycho's psycho (Dennis Hopper) for a boy friend. As Jeffrey gets more tangled up in Dorothy's woeful, dangerous life, he tries to maintain a normal, healthy relationship with Sandy (Laura Dern) another guy's girlfriend but maybe not for long. Jeffrey travels back and forth between Sandy's perfect middle-class world and the chaos that exists in Dorothy and Frank's world. The point may be that while both world's exist, people want to pretend that the dark one isn't really there. In the end Jeffrey and Sandy return to their nice predictable lives as if nothing ever happened.
So the first time I saw this I was just chugging along enjoying the weirdness and the rather imaginative approach to adolescent eroticism when....Dennis Hopper walked in the door. My feelings turned on a dime. To say that his first appearance stops the show isn't quite accurate. Lynch is known for throwing curve balls and Frank takes the movie into another scary, sadistic dimension entirely, one that is vivid to experience but I would hesitate to call it fun. Lynch uses Frank to raise the stakes, but I wonder if even he knew how scary Hopper could get. And Lynch doesn't tone down Hopper a bit. There is a lot going on that is funny in the movie but nothing quite jolts like the contrast between milky Jeffrey and psycho killer Frank. It turns out that Jeffrey is more of a piece of work than expected, too--with some not unsubstantial darkness lurking within, too. But it's the type of darkness that he and girlfriend can pretend to wish away--forgive and forget as Sandy does. Throughout all this, nagging at the edges with very sharp teeth, is the movie's social asperity--the sense that middle-America is full of decay, violence and dread, a collection of genuine horrors that the dull, trusting citizens just want to ignore. No, not ignore. Not even be aware of is more like it--as in "this isn't us; this doesn't happen in small town America." In other words people would rather embrace the myth of the American dream than even consider the reality. Blue Velvet still seems clever, "really out there," and deeply disturbing after all these years. I take Lynch's points; indeed I am impressed by them. However I don't plan to revisit Lumberton again.
KallioWeHardlyKnewYe
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Blue Velvet
Lynch (1986)
“You wanna go for a ride?”
I’ve mused about Lynch on this site elsewhere in the past. I was slow to warm up to his eccentricities (Blue Velvet being an exception), but unlike other filmmakers I was content to just walk away from, chalking it up to a misunderstanding, there was always something about Lynch that made me not want to give up. What I realized and what started to bring me around on him is that he’s doing noir, his own, bizzare, deeply weird, brightly lit, funhouse version of noir. There’s crime, detctives, innocents, gangsters, molls, henchmen. Blue Velvet, Twin Peaks, Wild at Heart, Lost Highway, Mulholland Drive — these are all pulpy stories. Of course he peppers them with pervsion and psycho-sexual nuttiness and Lynchian flourishes like that severed ear and his deep love for 1950s/1960s needle drops. He’s James M. Cain snarfing up psychotropics.
He is gleefully, definantly David Lynch and I’ve grown to love him for it. A true American original uncapable of duplication or impersonation. (If you have a spare 17 minutes his short, What Did Jack Do? that recently appeared on Netflix is many things Lynch writ small. I wouldn’t dream of spoiling.)
Blue Velvet a trenchant and devilish commentary on America, the evils and ills the are hidden by the placid white picket fences. What we choose to see and/or believe. It’s there whether we’re paying attention or not. It’s the ordinary and the extraordinary rolled up into one demented package.
Fresh-face MacLaughlin and Dern make for an idealized Hardy Boy/Nancy Drew combo in this nightmare scenario. Rosellini pulls off a nigh impossible role of a deeply damaged woman seeking escape (or is she?). It’s brutal and raw in ways that feel both real and dream like and to be honest, I haven’t seen a role or performance like it since. And then there’s that big, bellowing monster. I’d say Dennis Hopper chews scenery here, but he doesn’t stop to bite or breathe. He swallows whole. It’s one of the wildest, capital A Acting performances and it feels like it could’ve gone wrong at any point or in anyone else’s hands, but with Lynch and this whole nightmare aesthetic, it works. He’s menace incarnate and as despicable as he is, he’s also darkly darkly funny. How anyone can utter his pleading “Baby wants to fuuuuuucck” without being either moustache twirling evil or high camp is beyond me. He empowered PBR drinkers forever. And then you feel horrible for laughing.
Good prevails. At least for now.
Lynch (1986)
“You wanna go for a ride?”
I’ve mused about Lynch on this site elsewhere in the past. I was slow to warm up to his eccentricities (Blue Velvet being an exception), but unlike other filmmakers I was content to just walk away from, chalking it up to a misunderstanding, there was always something about Lynch that made me not want to give up. What I realized and what started to bring me around on him is that he’s doing noir, his own, bizzare, deeply weird, brightly lit, funhouse version of noir. There’s crime, detctives, innocents, gangsters, molls, henchmen. Blue Velvet, Twin Peaks, Wild at Heart, Lost Highway, Mulholland Drive — these are all pulpy stories. Of course he peppers them with pervsion and psycho-sexual nuttiness and Lynchian flourishes like that severed ear and his deep love for 1950s/1960s needle drops. He’s James M. Cain snarfing up psychotropics.
He is gleefully, definantly David Lynch and I’ve grown to love him for it. A true American original uncapable of duplication or impersonation. (If you have a spare 17 minutes his short, What Did Jack Do? that recently appeared on Netflix is many things Lynch writ small. I wouldn’t dream of spoiling.)
Blue Velvet a trenchant and devilish commentary on America, the evils and ills the are hidden by the placid white picket fences. What we choose to see and/or believe. It’s there whether we’re paying attention or not. It’s the ordinary and the extraordinary rolled up into one demented package.
Fresh-face MacLaughlin and Dern make for an idealized Hardy Boy/Nancy Drew combo in this nightmare scenario. Rosellini pulls off a nigh impossible role of a deeply damaged woman seeking escape (or is she?). It’s brutal and raw in ways that feel both real and dream like and to be honest, I haven’t seen a role or performance like it since. And then there’s that big, bellowing monster. I’d say Dennis Hopper chews scenery here, but he doesn’t stop to bite or breathe. He swallows whole. It’s one of the wildest, capital A Acting performances and it feels like it could’ve gone wrong at any point or in anyone else’s hands, but with Lynch and this whole nightmare aesthetic, it works. He’s menace incarnate and as despicable as he is, he’s also darkly darkly funny. How anyone can utter his pleading “Baby wants to fuuuuuucck” without being either moustache twirling evil or high camp is beyond me. He empowered PBR drinkers forever. And then you feel horrible for laughing.
Good prevails. At least for now.
Spring in Fialta
A malign star kept him
Jevo
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- Oct 3, 2010
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Blue Velvet (1986) dir. David Lynch
Jeffrey Beaumont (Kyle MacLachlan) returns to his hometown of Lumberton, North Carolina from college after his father suffers a stroke. While walking home from the hospital he notices a cut-off ear in a park. He takes the ear to police detective John Williams who is known to Jeffrey's family. Jeffrey gets reacquianted with the detective's daughter Sandy (Laura Dern), who is still a high school student in town. Sandy informs Jeffrey that she has overheard her father say that the ear is connected a lounge singer Dorothy Vallens (Isabella Rossellini). The pair stake out Dorothy's apartment. Jeffrey dresses up as a bug sprayer as an excuse to enter her apartment, there he steals a key. At night they go to her night club and hears her sing Blue Velvet. They then go her apartment where Jeffrey locks himself in and goes about exploring her apartment for clues. He gets interrupted by Vallens returning home early. He hides in the closet, but she finds him. First she threatens him, but then starts fellating him. The two in turn gets interrupted by the arrival of Frank Booth (Dennis Hopper). Jeffrey is pushed back into hiding as Frank enters. Frank beats up Dorothy and sexually assaults her in a weird sort of role playing. It becomes apparent to Jeffrey that Frank is a gangster, and must have kidnapped Dorothy's husband and child to use her as sex slave, and the ear must be the ear of Dorothy's husband. Now just to prove it all.
Blue Velvet is not as shocking as it was almost 35 years ago when it came out. We have come accustomed to many things in films since then. But Blue Velvet is still quite a unique experience. Mainly because no one really makes movies like David Lynch does. What goes on inside his mind I don't know, and I'm not sure I want to find out. But it leaves Blue Velvet sort of timeless, because it is not particularly typical of its time, nor has what it does been done so much that it's become cliché. The film is genuinely eerie for almost it's entire runtime, with the music adding to that. But mostly the strange sorta dreamy dialogue, that doesn't sound natural at all. Which almost makes you wonder what planet or dimension this takes place in. It's the same sort of "trick" that Lynch used later in Twin Peaks to help give it it's signature style and feel. Blue Velvet feels to be like a Twin Peaks V0.5, as this feels like where Lynch started building up to what would become Twin Peaks. While Twin Peaks flirted with the supernatural early on, Blue Velvet mere flirts with the idea of the supernatural. The closest we come is The Yellow Jacket man standing up while being completely dead and already rotting. Otherwise the movie takes place in a very real world. A very strange real world, but nonetheless real. I have watched Blue Velvet a couple of times now, and I still get the same eerie feeling watching it now as I did the first time. Despite knowing what to expect, it still feels like anything could happen, especially things I'm not even able to imagine. And that's a fantastic feeling to have while watching a film.
Dennis Hopper gives absolutely everything as Frank Booth. He constantly straddles the line between completely hamming it up and giving an excellent performance, and somehow he always lands on the right side of it. I'm not sure there are many other directors out there who could have made that performance work other than Lynch. I can't help but laugh when he yells into the vagina of Isabella Rossellini like it's a megaphone. But at the same time he freaks me out all the time he is on screen. Rossellini also gives a lot of herself in this film, and often also straddles that same line as Hopper, and somehow she makes Dorothy Vallens work as a character with this approach.
Jeffrey Beaumont (Kyle MacLachlan) returns to his hometown of Lumberton, North Carolina from college after his father suffers a stroke. While walking home from the hospital he notices a cut-off ear in a park. He takes the ear to police detective John Williams who is known to Jeffrey's family. Jeffrey gets reacquianted with the detective's daughter Sandy (Laura Dern), who is still a high school student in town. Sandy informs Jeffrey that she has overheard her father say that the ear is connected a lounge singer Dorothy Vallens (Isabella Rossellini). The pair stake out Dorothy's apartment. Jeffrey dresses up as a bug sprayer as an excuse to enter her apartment, there he steals a key. At night they go to her night club and hears her sing Blue Velvet. They then go her apartment where Jeffrey locks himself in and goes about exploring her apartment for clues. He gets interrupted by Vallens returning home early. He hides in the closet, but she finds him. First she threatens him, but then starts fellating him. The two in turn gets interrupted by the arrival of Frank Booth (Dennis Hopper). Jeffrey is pushed back into hiding as Frank enters. Frank beats up Dorothy and sexually assaults her in a weird sort of role playing. It becomes apparent to Jeffrey that Frank is a gangster, and must have kidnapped Dorothy's husband and child to use her as sex slave, and the ear must be the ear of Dorothy's husband. Now just to prove it all.
Blue Velvet is not as shocking as it was almost 35 years ago when it came out. We have come accustomed to many things in films since then. But Blue Velvet is still quite a unique experience. Mainly because no one really makes movies like David Lynch does. What goes on inside his mind I don't know, and I'm not sure I want to find out. But it leaves Blue Velvet sort of timeless, because it is not particularly typical of its time, nor has what it does been done so much that it's become cliché. The film is genuinely eerie for almost it's entire runtime, with the music adding to that. But mostly the strange sorta dreamy dialogue, that doesn't sound natural at all. Which almost makes you wonder what planet or dimension this takes place in. It's the same sort of "trick" that Lynch used later in Twin Peaks to help give it it's signature style and feel. Blue Velvet feels to be like a Twin Peaks V0.5, as this feels like where Lynch started building up to what would become Twin Peaks. While Twin Peaks flirted with the supernatural early on, Blue Velvet mere flirts with the idea of the supernatural. The closest we come is The Yellow Jacket man standing up while being completely dead and already rotting. Otherwise the movie takes place in a very real world. A very strange real world, but nonetheless real. I have watched Blue Velvet a couple of times now, and I still get the same eerie feeling watching it now as I did the first time. Despite knowing what to expect, it still feels like anything could happen, especially things I'm not even able to imagine. And that's a fantastic feeling to have while watching a film.
Dennis Hopper gives absolutely everything as Frank Booth. He constantly straddles the line between completely hamming it up and giving an excellent performance, and somehow he always lands on the right side of it. I'm not sure there are many other directors out there who could have made that performance work other than Lynch. I can't help but laugh when he yells into the vagina of Isabella Rossellini like it's a megaphone. But at the same time he freaks me out all the time he is on screen. Rossellini also gives a lot of herself in this film, and often also straddles that same line as Hopper, and somehow she makes Dorothy Vallens work as a character with this approach.
Nights of Cabiria (1957) Directed by Federico Fellini
Nights of Cabiria starts with Cabiria (Giulietta Masina) cavorting with her latest boyfriend by the bank of a river. They seem like a loving, happy couple until the boyfriend shoves her in the water and steals her purse. Thus begins Nights of Cabiria, a character study of a forlorn hooker with a heart of gold. The movie is a string of one mishap after another that occurs to her as she just tries to get through her life, but fate seems to have it in for her. A long string of humiliations culminates when she finally finds a man who she thinks truly loves her only to be confronted with the fact that he is just another opportunist out to get her money. This movie sounds depressing as hell, but it is really a character study of an indomitable woman who wears her resiliency like a badge of honour. No matter how often fate throws her for a loop, she picks herself back up and gets back in the race.
Nights of Cabiria represents the last of Federico Fellini's early stage of direction; in other words, Fellini before he was FELLINI. With La Dolce Vita followed by the superb 8 1/2, his preoccupation with small time life in Italy gave way, with one exception Variety Lights, to something more grandiose and showy. Not many people these days are familiar with these early works--The White Shiek; I Vetilloni; La Strada; Il Bidone; and Nights of Cabiria--but they are among the best films of the '50s. Giulietta Masina and Fellini were married for fifty years before his death in 1993. They collaborated on all but one of the movies listed above, and several later films. Fellini's movies in general, no matter how potentially dark the subject matter, convey an Italian spirit, optimistic, noisy, full of life and generosity, the sense that life can be tough but it sure beats the alternative. That spirit is evident in Night of Cabiria. No matter how bleak her life gets, no matter the ill will and bad luck that befalls her, Cabiria never lets it get the best of her, at least not for very long. She is like a little yellow rubber duck that can be easily pushed beneath the surface of the water, but she always bobs back up. Who knows? Tomorrow is another day and there is always the slim chance it will be the best day of her life.
Being about a prostitute, undoubted the movie was controversial at the time, but today it's hard to see what the fuss might have been about. Fellini never directly addresses the issue of prostitution, and if you weren't paying attention you could might even miss the fact that Cabiria is a hooker. Rather, whatever her profession, this is a movie about a waif who lives on her own, longs for love, and accepts pretty much her lot in life without great complaint. She may not have much going for her or much to offer, but her spirit is beautiful. If God needed a lamb to rescue for demonstration purposes, she would be the perfect choice. It is hard to imagine this movie being half as successful as it is with the talented Masina. She reminds me, she probably reminds everybody, of Charlie Chaplin's The Tramp, another character who combines hard luck with pluck, resilience and eternal optimism. Even better than Chaplin, though, Masina instinctively seems to know how far she can stretch sentimentality--which is pretty damn far. Sentimentality is to me the ugly step-sister of human emotions. It usually cheapens whatever it touches and looks crass doing so--a way of taking the easy way rather than dealing with real, honest emotion. It remains rife in popular entertainments, representing a real dumbing down of feeling, a cheap trick that calls into question the trustworthiness and taste of the trickster. But Masina can tug at hearts all night, and I never can quite hold it against her. In her case, sentimentality gives a certain theatricality to her performance that distances her from a harder edge, more realistic performance that might drag her character down into the depths of despair. As with Chaplin, the audience knows that she will bounce back somehow and what could be tragic is mitigated by the whimsical.
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NyQuil
Big F$&*in Q
KallioWeHardlyKnewYe
Hey! We won!
- May 30, 2003
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Nights of Cabiria
Fellini (1957)
“She lives the life.”
Cabiria is a prostitute. Life isn’t great though you wouldn’t necessarily know it by her disposition. She’s ebullient. Bright smile. Always ready with a dance. She’s high on a dream of love that she does not have, but she always seems to think is right around the corner. Despite the indignities she suffers — such as being dumped into a river and robbed as happens in the opening scene. She’s mad, sure, but that passes. Maybe it’ll be the classy man she stumbles upon. Turns out he’s a famous actor. Alas, that’s not her future. She’s cheery and more than a little naive, but she isn’t exactly weak. She can be firey (in that very stereotyped Italian way), prone to an occasional scrap, and she’s got enough of a head to avoid the police. Her sense stop there though. She ventures to a religious site for some sort of redemption. She wanders onto a hypnotist’s act and while under his spell, she confesses her desire for love (as well as her home and bank account). After that she meets Oscar, who seems to be her dream. Good, gainfully employed. Could this be happiness? She attempts to reject his marriage proposal, fearing she isn’t worthy. She changes her mind. She shouldn’t have. He’s scheming her and in a heartbreaking reveal it seems he’s going to push her off a cliff into water (echoing the opening...). He doesn’t. He chickens out, but he does rob her. She wallows, begging for death. But she comes to and returns to town. She’s taken up in a parade. She’s got her life at least. There’s a sad smile. The awfulness hasn’t beaten her yet.
Giulietta Masina is one of cinema’s great faces. Cherubic. Saucer eyes. Bold eye brows. She’s an antidote to cynicism. There’s almost a temptation to be angry at her for her illusions, but then she beams and what can you do? Those eyes. This makes for quite the heart-rending double feature with La Strada where she plays even more of an innocent. Not that it’s a completion, but I think I prefer La Strada overall as a movie, but Masina’s performance is even better here. It’s her movie and she carries it to its heartbreaking conclusion. As crushing as the ending reveal is, it’s the hypnotist sequence that’s almost more devastating. She’s laid bare in front of society. You see her wistfulness, her potential joy ... and it’s ripped away and turned to gutting embarrassment. The bittersweet denouement.
Fellini is an odd blind spot for me. I’ve only seen this, I Vitelloni (which I was a little cold to) and La Strada (which I adore) so I’ve caught that initial international boom when he was younger and more grounded before he started getting trippier (as I understand it). I appreciate the step beyond he goes here from someone like Rossellini. It’s grounded, but not quite realistic. Cabiria is heightened, the world around her is heightened ever so slightly, the dial turned just a notch or too toward fantasy. I know he’ll turn it further as his career goes along.
Fellini (1957)
“She lives the life.”
Cabiria is a prostitute. Life isn’t great though you wouldn’t necessarily know it by her disposition. She’s ebullient. Bright smile. Always ready with a dance. She’s high on a dream of love that she does not have, but she always seems to think is right around the corner. Despite the indignities she suffers — such as being dumped into a river and robbed as happens in the opening scene. She’s mad, sure, but that passes. Maybe it’ll be the classy man she stumbles upon. Turns out he’s a famous actor. Alas, that’s not her future. She’s cheery and more than a little naive, but she isn’t exactly weak. She can be firey (in that very stereotyped Italian way), prone to an occasional scrap, and she’s got enough of a head to avoid the police. Her sense stop there though. She ventures to a religious site for some sort of redemption. She wanders onto a hypnotist’s act and while under his spell, she confesses her desire for love (as well as her home and bank account). After that she meets Oscar, who seems to be her dream. Good, gainfully employed. Could this be happiness? She attempts to reject his marriage proposal, fearing she isn’t worthy. She changes her mind. She shouldn’t have. He’s scheming her and in a heartbreaking reveal it seems he’s going to push her off a cliff into water (echoing the opening...). He doesn’t. He chickens out, but he does rob her. She wallows, begging for death. But she comes to and returns to town. She’s taken up in a parade. She’s got her life at least. There’s a sad smile. The awfulness hasn’t beaten her yet.
Giulietta Masina is one of cinema’s great faces. Cherubic. Saucer eyes. Bold eye brows. She’s an antidote to cynicism. There’s almost a temptation to be angry at her for her illusions, but then she beams and what can you do? Those eyes. This makes for quite the heart-rending double feature with La Strada where she plays even more of an innocent. Not that it’s a completion, but I think I prefer La Strada overall as a movie, but Masina’s performance is even better here. It’s her movie and she carries it to its heartbreaking conclusion. As crushing as the ending reveal is, it’s the hypnotist sequence that’s almost more devastating. She’s laid bare in front of society. You see her wistfulness, her potential joy ... and it’s ripped away and turned to gutting embarrassment. The bittersweet denouement.
Fellini is an odd blind spot for me. I’ve only seen this, I Vitelloni (which I was a little cold to) and La Strada (which I adore) so I’ve caught that initial international boom when he was younger and more grounded before he started getting trippier (as I understand it). I appreciate the step beyond he goes here from someone like Rossellini. It’s grounded, but not quite realistic. Cabiria is heightened, the world around her is heightened ever so slightly, the dial turned just a notch or too toward fantasy. I know he’ll turn it further as his career goes along.
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Nights of Cabiria (1957) dir. Federico Fellini
Cabiria starts this story off getting pushed into a river by her "boyfriend" who steals her purse and runs off. A symptomatic scene of her life. We don't learn a lot about this boyfriend, but he probably wasn't the loving, caring type for the brief period they were together. Cabiria desperate for love is ready to throw herself at anyone showing her the least bit of affection. Like her neighbour and best friend Wanda, Cabiria makes a living as a prostitute. A stark contrast to her search for true love. In some ways the profession has served her well. She owns her own small house, she doesn't have to resort to living in a cave. But it is also filled with male attention, but utterly devoid of love. Her existence is a strange one. She is by no means wealthy, but she has roof over her head and food on her plate without worry. She doesn't seem to desire materialistic things outside of her most basic needs. There are many around Rome who would be jealous of her situation, but what she desires, true love, is perhaps even more unreachable for her, than her house is the cave people. Yet she always seems to have an unbreakable belief that things are going to work out her for.
Fellini has his background in neo-realists film, and Nights of Cabiria shows that with it's setting in the bottom of society. But it also shows a transition away from this. Cabiria dreams of something as abstract as true love. Most characters in neo realist works don't have the time for dreaming of such things. But Cabiria is a dreamer, and she lives in a dream world. She doesn't seem to allow herself to really see the ugliness of her life, because it would probably interfere with her search for love. Only rarely does the dark and depressing reality of her life come to the surface, most of the time she's optimistic about what the future might bring her. Fellini's neo-realist roots of course doesn't allow him to give her a happy ending. But he gives us one of the best endings in film. Cabiria is at her lowest low, but the kids leaving the party doesn't mock her as they pass her one the road. They make her one of them. Strangers she'll probably never see again show her a kind of unconditional love, however short lived it might be, that Cabiria probably hasn't felt in years. A really strong emotional ending. There are several really strong scenes in this film. I also really liked the hypnosis scene where Cabiria tells her desire of true love to a crowd, who mocks her relentlessly. How violated must you feel after having been forced to expose your deepest desire, only to have everyone laugh at you. The scene where Cabiria hands over the keys to her tiny house to a big family who can't wait to move into a house that seemed crowded when one person lived there is very short, but also packs a big punch.
I'm more a fan of La Dolce Vita and 8½, but Nights of Cabiria has some really strong moments along the way. Giulietta Masina as Cabiria also delievers a fantastic performance, where she's asked to do a lot of things, some times she has to do them very subtly, other times she has act big and melodramatic, and she does all it great.
Cabiria starts this story off getting pushed into a river by her "boyfriend" who steals her purse and runs off. A symptomatic scene of her life. We don't learn a lot about this boyfriend, but he probably wasn't the loving, caring type for the brief period they were together. Cabiria desperate for love is ready to throw herself at anyone showing her the least bit of affection. Like her neighbour and best friend Wanda, Cabiria makes a living as a prostitute. A stark contrast to her search for true love. In some ways the profession has served her well. She owns her own small house, she doesn't have to resort to living in a cave. But it is also filled with male attention, but utterly devoid of love. Her existence is a strange one. She is by no means wealthy, but she has roof over her head and food on her plate without worry. She doesn't seem to desire materialistic things outside of her most basic needs. There are many around Rome who would be jealous of her situation, but what she desires, true love, is perhaps even more unreachable for her, than her house is the cave people. Yet she always seems to have an unbreakable belief that things are going to work out her for.
Fellini has his background in neo-realists film, and Nights of Cabiria shows that with it's setting in the bottom of society. But it also shows a transition away from this. Cabiria dreams of something as abstract as true love. Most characters in neo realist works don't have the time for dreaming of such things. But Cabiria is a dreamer, and she lives in a dream world. She doesn't seem to allow herself to really see the ugliness of her life, because it would probably interfere with her search for love. Only rarely does the dark and depressing reality of her life come to the surface, most of the time she's optimistic about what the future might bring her. Fellini's neo-realist roots of course doesn't allow him to give her a happy ending. But he gives us one of the best endings in film. Cabiria is at her lowest low, but the kids leaving the party doesn't mock her as they pass her one the road. They make her one of them. Strangers she'll probably never see again show her a kind of unconditional love, however short lived it might be, that Cabiria probably hasn't felt in years. A really strong emotional ending. There are several really strong scenes in this film. I also really liked the hypnosis scene where Cabiria tells her desire of true love to a crowd, who mocks her relentlessly. How violated must you feel after having been forced to expose your deepest desire, only to have everyone laugh at you. The scene where Cabiria hands over the keys to her tiny house to a big family who can't wait to move into a house that seemed crowded when one person lived there is very short, but also packs a big punch.
I'm more a fan of La Dolce Vita and 8½, but Nights of Cabiria has some really strong moments along the way. Giulietta Masina as Cabiria also delievers a fantastic performance, where she's asked to do a lot of things, some times she has to do them very subtly, other times she has act big and melodramatic, and she does all it great.
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Pan's Labyrinth (2006) dir. Guillermo del Toro
In 1944 the Spanish Civil War is over, but republican insurgencies still roam in the mountains, and the Spanish military are hunting these small isolated groups. Captain Vidal is the commander of a military outfit hunting rebels deep in the Pyrenees. Vidal has sent for his new wife Carmen, who is pregnant with their child and quite sick, and her daughter from a previous marriage Ofelia, to be with him at the military outpost. Ofelia is an adventurous kid who loves to read fairy tales. She sees a large stick insect which she believes to be a fairy, which leads her to an old stone labyrinth located next to the mill where they are staying. During the night the insect comes back for Ofelia, and leads her to the centre of the labyrinth. There she meets a faun who tells her she's actually Princess Moanna of a magical kingdom. To prove she is ready to leave mortality behind and return to the magic kingdom, she has to pass three tests, and he gives her a magic book which will show her the tests when she is ready. Meanwhile Vidal shows himself as a ruthless commander who has no qualms about killing innocents. But under his nose his housekeeper Mercedes and the local doctor are helping the rebels by giving them food, medicine and intel.
Pan's Labyrinth is the best fairy tale ever put on screen. It's quite dark and scary, and probably not particularly kid friendly. But if you go back and read the original versions of many popular fairy tales, they are often quite dark and scary as well. Del Toro is genre savy, he knows what makes a fairy tale, and he's able to seamlessly mix Ofelia's fairy tale world with the human conflict happening right next to it. You buy into this world from the very first second. Del Toro has a fantastic imagination, there's no doubt about that when watching any of his movies. They always have fantastic costumes and set designs. The big question mark regarding his films is always whether the story elements will come together as well as the visuals. Sadly more often than not they don't quite, at least in my opinion. But in Pan's Labyrinth he manages to make everything come together. Both story and visuals are of equally high quality, and they compliment each other perfectly. Rarely does a fantasy film manage to draw me into their world as effortlessly as Pan's Labyrinth does.
Sergi Lopez as captain Vidal is one of the scariest villains in film in my opinion. He's domineering from the first time we see him, and he's obviously an antagonist to Ofelia. But he feels much scarier than he acts at first. It's only a little while later when he kills the rabbit hunters in cold blood, and doesn't even flinch when he finds out they were just rabbit hunters like the claimed, that we see how evil he really is. But Sergi Lopez makes him feel that scary from the get go when there isn't really anything to back it up. I really adore his performance here. I love to be scared of him. Ivana Baquero as Ofelia also delivers a great leading performance. I don't speak Spanish so it's to tell if her delivery is a bit stilted. But the way she uses her face is great for a 12 year old. Her performance isn't just good for a child, it's good for actors in general.
In 1944 the Spanish Civil War is over, but republican insurgencies still roam in the mountains, and the Spanish military are hunting these small isolated groups. Captain Vidal is the commander of a military outfit hunting rebels deep in the Pyrenees. Vidal has sent for his new wife Carmen, who is pregnant with their child and quite sick, and her daughter from a previous marriage Ofelia, to be with him at the military outpost. Ofelia is an adventurous kid who loves to read fairy tales. She sees a large stick insect which she believes to be a fairy, which leads her to an old stone labyrinth located next to the mill where they are staying. During the night the insect comes back for Ofelia, and leads her to the centre of the labyrinth. There she meets a faun who tells her she's actually Princess Moanna of a magical kingdom. To prove she is ready to leave mortality behind and return to the magic kingdom, she has to pass three tests, and he gives her a magic book which will show her the tests when she is ready. Meanwhile Vidal shows himself as a ruthless commander who has no qualms about killing innocents. But under his nose his housekeeper Mercedes and the local doctor are helping the rebels by giving them food, medicine and intel.
Pan's Labyrinth is the best fairy tale ever put on screen. It's quite dark and scary, and probably not particularly kid friendly. But if you go back and read the original versions of many popular fairy tales, they are often quite dark and scary as well. Del Toro is genre savy, he knows what makes a fairy tale, and he's able to seamlessly mix Ofelia's fairy tale world with the human conflict happening right next to it. You buy into this world from the very first second. Del Toro has a fantastic imagination, there's no doubt about that when watching any of his movies. They always have fantastic costumes and set designs. The big question mark regarding his films is always whether the story elements will come together as well as the visuals. Sadly more often than not they don't quite, at least in my opinion. But in Pan's Labyrinth he manages to make everything come together. Both story and visuals are of equally high quality, and they compliment each other perfectly. Rarely does a fantasy film manage to draw me into their world as effortlessly as Pan's Labyrinth does.
Sergi Lopez as captain Vidal is one of the scariest villains in film in my opinion. He's domineering from the first time we see him, and he's obviously an antagonist to Ofelia. But he feels much scarier than he acts at first. It's only a little while later when he kills the rabbit hunters in cold blood, and doesn't even flinch when he finds out they were just rabbit hunters like the claimed, that we see how evil he really is. But Sergi Lopez makes him feel that scary from the get go when there isn't really anything to back it up. I really adore his performance here. I love to be scared of him. Ivana Baquero as Ofelia also delivers a great leading performance. I don't speak Spanish so it's to tell if her delivery is a bit stilted. But the way she uses her face is great for a 12 year old. Her performance isn't just good for a child, it's good for actors in general.
Jevo
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- Oct 3, 2010
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KallioWeHardlyKnewYe
Hey! We won!
- May 30, 2003
- 15,528
- 3,377
KallioWeHardlyKnewYe
Hey! We won!
- May 30, 2003
- 15,528
- 3,377
Pan’s Labyrinth
Del Toro (2006)
“The world is a cruel place. Not like one of your fairy tales.”
The Spanish Civil War rages. Young Ofelia and her pregnant mother are whisked off to a mill in the woods where The Captain is holed up, hunting rebels in the woods. Captain is a monster of a man who accused Ofelia’s father of being a traitor and had him killed only to shack up with his wife. Her mother is at least outwardly at peace with the arrangement. There’s safety and comfort, or so she believes. Ofelia is a dreamer, obsessed with fairy tales and the mill is jet fuel. The brave girl wanders into an abandoned labyrinth on the grounds and meets a Faun who tells her she’s the heir to this underworld and can obtain immortality by complete in a series of tasks. Her fantasies — a disgusting bilious frog, the horrifying Pale Man, bug-like fairies, a magical root meant to help her mom’s difficult pregnancy — are juxtaposed against the the very real rebellion beyond their front doors. A local doctor and maid are part of the resistance, secretly working against the Captain and his soldiers. All the worlds begin to collapse as the rebels lose ground and numbers, Ofelia’s mother dies during birth and the real life intrusions pull the young girl from her fantasy tasks. Everything collides when Ofelia confronts the Captain, steals her brother and chooses to sacrifice herself, rather than harm her young sibling. It brings a tragic real world demise but the promised eternal life in her fantastic kingdom. The Captain is gunned down and her brother is adopted by the rebels. It’s a costly victory.
Whether or not the fantastical is real is irevelant (and part of the movie’s magic). It’s real to Ofelia whether or not it does exists. I’m also always surprised at how little of the fantasy is actually in the movie. That’s some of the most striking visuals certainly but it doesn’t take up nearly as much time as I always think it does. The Pale Man, in particular, is an unforgettable and horrifying creation of design and herky-jerky movement but he’s only in the film for 5 minutes tops? Del Toro gets so much from so little. It’s a pretty simple and straightforward tale. The good guys are good. The bad guys are bad. The true monsters are the humans isn’t the most original idea, but it’s effective as hell when done well as it is here. This is Del Toro’s imagination but the dark roots of Grimm are evident.
Del Toro’s one of my personal favorites. Like David Lynch, a few movies ago, Del Toro is a distinct creator. His monster movie inspirations and other reference points (Spirit of the Beehive for sure) are always evident but he makes everything his own. Tarantino may be a better comparison — a clear product of his influences but capable of being more than the sum of his parts (for the most part ...). He’s slimy and dark and ominous but never untethered from emotion. And boy does he have a knack for weird creations. Sometimes that’s half the battle.He’s at the peak of his powers here. Never better. (Tangent: I still think it’s funny that The Shape of Water is somehow considered an unworthy/dull/lackluster Best Picture winner. I wouldn’t say I love it, but it’s a weird, gross, violent movie about a woman who gets real hot-and-heavy with a damn FISHMAN ... we’re not talking The Kings Speech of Gandhi here. This is an odd movie!)
Back to Pan’s Labyrinth, I think my only complaint is that some of the CGI really hasn’t held up well. It’s perhaps a little unfair to hold that against the movie but it’s distracting at points when Ofelia clearly isn’t looking at where the fairies have been place on screen and the frog scene is a little rough visually. Pretty minor and admittedly nitpicky.
Del Toro (2006)
“The world is a cruel place. Not like one of your fairy tales.”
The Spanish Civil War rages. Young Ofelia and her pregnant mother are whisked off to a mill in the woods where The Captain is holed up, hunting rebels in the woods. Captain is a monster of a man who accused Ofelia’s father of being a traitor and had him killed only to shack up with his wife. Her mother is at least outwardly at peace with the arrangement. There’s safety and comfort, or so she believes. Ofelia is a dreamer, obsessed with fairy tales and the mill is jet fuel. The brave girl wanders into an abandoned labyrinth on the grounds and meets a Faun who tells her she’s the heir to this underworld and can obtain immortality by complete in a series of tasks. Her fantasies — a disgusting bilious frog, the horrifying Pale Man, bug-like fairies, a magical root meant to help her mom’s difficult pregnancy — are juxtaposed against the the very real rebellion beyond their front doors. A local doctor and maid are part of the resistance, secretly working against the Captain and his soldiers. All the worlds begin to collapse as the rebels lose ground and numbers, Ofelia’s mother dies during birth and the real life intrusions pull the young girl from her fantasy tasks. Everything collides when Ofelia confronts the Captain, steals her brother and chooses to sacrifice herself, rather than harm her young sibling. It brings a tragic real world demise but the promised eternal life in her fantastic kingdom. The Captain is gunned down and her brother is adopted by the rebels. It’s a costly victory.
Whether or not the fantastical is real is irevelant (and part of the movie’s magic). It’s real to Ofelia whether or not it does exists. I’m also always surprised at how little of the fantasy is actually in the movie. That’s some of the most striking visuals certainly but it doesn’t take up nearly as much time as I always think it does. The Pale Man, in particular, is an unforgettable and horrifying creation of design and herky-jerky movement but he’s only in the film for 5 minutes tops? Del Toro gets so much from so little. It’s a pretty simple and straightforward tale. The good guys are good. The bad guys are bad. The true monsters are the humans isn’t the most original idea, but it’s effective as hell when done well as it is here. This is Del Toro’s imagination but the dark roots of Grimm are evident.
Del Toro’s one of my personal favorites. Like David Lynch, a few movies ago, Del Toro is a distinct creator. His monster movie inspirations and other reference points (Spirit of the Beehive for sure) are always evident but he makes everything his own. Tarantino may be a better comparison — a clear product of his influences but capable of being more than the sum of his parts (for the most part ...). He’s slimy and dark and ominous but never untethered from emotion. And boy does he have a knack for weird creations. Sometimes that’s half the battle.He’s at the peak of his powers here. Never better. (Tangent: I still think it’s funny that The Shape of Water is somehow considered an unworthy/dull/lackluster Best Picture winner. I wouldn’t say I love it, but it’s a weird, gross, violent movie about a woman who gets real hot-and-heavy with a damn FISHMAN ... we’re not talking The Kings Speech of Gandhi here. This is an odd movie!)
Back to Pan’s Labyrinth, I think my only complaint is that some of the CGI really hasn’t held up well. It’s perhaps a little unfair to hold that against the movie but it’s distracting at points when Ofelia clearly isn’t looking at where the fairies have been place on screen and the frog scene is a little rough visually. Pretty minor and admittedly nitpicky.
Pan's Labyrinth (2006) Directed by Giullermo del Toro
It came as a shock to me to realize that since 2006, Gillermo del Toro has directed only four movies (Hellboy 2; Pacific Rim; Crimson Peak; and the Academy Award winner The Shape of Water). I think his presence feels so pervasive to me because I have never quite gotten over the experience of watching Pan's Labyrinth. I am generally not a wussy, nor one with delicate sensibilities. But I find it almost impossible to watch this movie; actually I find it discomforting to even think about this movie. This despite the fact that I believe the film is one of the greatest works of fantasy ever to show up on a movie screen. I think of it the same way that film critic Dwight Macdonald perceived 8 1/2: "an obvious masterpiece." The first time I saw it (I've seen it three times now, not a lot for a work of such quality, complexity and imagination) I was simultaneously entranced and horrified. Entranced by its fantasy, but horrified by its reality. Ofelia's journey is a complex one. She is an innocent in both worlds, but she is so overmatched by her Fascist step-father Vidal, who is almost too convincingly played by Sergi Lopez. He is the real monster of the piece but actually the fantasy creatures can be pretty monstrous as well. It is heart-wrenching to think that Ofilia (Ivana Baquero) creates a fantasy world that is almost as dangerous as the world she lives in and no more rational. But Vidal makes her real world a living hell, as he does for virtually everyone who he has the least bit of power over. There is so much in this movie to unpack, so much about authoritarianism, power, human fragility in the face of evil, as well as figuring out the ambiguous nature of the ending. It is as though Del Toro has packed everything he feels deeply about into one movie and then leaves the audience to find its way out of its own labyrinth. What really nailed me, though, was the depiction of an adult's deliberate cruelty to a child in his trust. I can twist and tease the evidence anyway I want, but in the end I can think of few works that depict the vulnerability of a child trapped by a monster any better than this film does. As impressed as I am by the movie, I find this part not so much difficult to watch as difficult to live with. I want to look away from the reality, but the fantasy never seems sufficient escape, as magical and complex though it is. There is also the possibility that the "fantasy" is "real," too, as so often is the case in Del Toro movies. But even if it is, it still seems paltry reward for a child's sacrifice, for her innocence betrayed. I think that deep down most of us have the belief that it may take a while, but good will eventually triumph over evil. Pan's Labryinth suggests that this is not always so, especially for those helplessly caught in its grasp.
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