One More Violent Christ Fable

Rating: 5/10 (2 January 2007)

Every so often I have that uncomfortable, squirmy feeling I'm sure all moviegoers do, when you're sitting in the theatre watching a movie that critics and audiences alike have hailed as a masterpiece, and you're not enjoying it all. That was me during "Pan's Labyrinth." My only reaction after coming out of this grueling, depressing Christ fable was: "Did I see the same movie everyone else did?"
Critics are likely responding to director Guillermo del Toro's fierce originality of vision, and indeed that is this film's most impressive asset. But the originality is wasted on a lame story capped by a lamer message, that essentially goes something like this: Don't worry if the life you're currently living brings you nothing but pain and misery -- all of that pain and misery will make you eligible for eternal happiness in Heaven. If you get cozy fuzzy feelings from canned religious homilies like this, then please, go watch this film and enjoy. But for one who doesn't believe in Heaven, and who would rather see films that offer practical messages of hope and salvation for our current troubled world, I felt gypped that in the end this movie had nothing better than that to say.
I don't need movies to tell me that the world can be a cruel and uncaring place to live. And a movie certainly need not go back to 1944 Spain to offer up examples of that cruelty. But if it's going to address a problem, it should at least be part of the solution, and give me something I can use. "Pan's Labyrinth" is bold in suggesting that a child's fantasy world may be no match for the harsh realities in which she is living -- in an industry that exists to sell us fantasy through which we can escape the real world, del Toro takes quite a gamble to give us this product that tells us just the opposite. But all of that boldness does nothing more than lead one to a Sunday school lesson that may just be the biggest fantasy of them all.
There's very little fantasy in this film, actually, much less than the trailers would have you believe. A majority of the film is devoted to the sadistic actions of a military captain serving Franco's regime, and we get to see him smash a peasant's face with a wine bottle until it caves in, shoot numerous people in the head and other parts of the body, torture one man with all manner of carpenter's tools. At one point, we get to see him stitch up a knife slice in his face in graphic close up detail. Those of us with less of a lust for blood may wonder if the more graphic scenes are truly necessary. Defenders of them will say yes, and that the horrors of this film's reality must be made clear if the juxtaposition of the main character's retreats into fantasy are to be effective. But I say that there is a difference between using violence graphically and using it effectively, and that the most graphic moments in this film do nothing but cheapen the overall effect.
And by the way, what is it with religious people and movies? Why does every religiously-themed film that anyone wants to see have to be dripping in sadism? What exactly do they teach you in those churches anyway?
This is a really grim film folks, completely lacking in any kind of wit. Guillermo del Toro obviously has imagination to spare, but it's not the kind of imagination I want to be spending any more time with any time soon.
Grade: C