An extraordinary, major film...marred a little by three lapses into the genre of teen horror yuckiness

Rating: 8/10 (6 February 2008)

Pan's Labyrinth is a marvelous, serious movie full of allegory, the easiest being fascism and freedom, nightmares and dreams. This is a film that people who like movies about ideas and implications will chew over and come back to. And I hope Sergi Lopez is doing things other than bad guys. He's a first-class actor. Those who've seen Dirty Pretty Things will recall him. As Harry in the French psycho movie, With a Friend Like Harry, he's exactly not the kind of friend to have.
I have one caveat. I wish first-class directors (and second-class directors, too) could resist indulging in the brutality "wow" factor some of their fans seem to love so much. I could see no purpose except to have the audience go "yuck" when the Captain's cheek is slit, when he sews it up himself and when he uses a bottle to smash in a captive's face. All are shown in close-up and in loving detail. Pan's Labyrinth is so good a movie that the three yuck moments aren't needed, in my view, except for pandering to a segment of the audience.
But doesn't the face-smashing truly and quickly establish the really brutal and vicious nature of the man, particularly as an allegory for fascism? Perhaps, but did it need to be shown in close-up? The whole scene was threatening because of the way Lopez played it. His brutal character, for me, was quickly set through Lopez' performance and the fright of the two peasants...there was no doubt, from my point of view, about the Captain's character. That was established to my satisfaction by the Captain matter-of-factly personally shooting the father more than once, then turning to put bullets into the son...more bullets than were needed, and by doing it himself. Then following that by the discovery of the rabbits in the knapsack and the...what? just irritation toward his subordinate for not thoroughly searching the two peasants.
I'll offer this as something to think about: If the three incidents I mentioned 1) had not been shot in close-up, but had been shown in medium shots or 2) with the bottle scene, the Captain starts to smash the bottle into the face but there was a cut-away so the direct smashing impacts weren't seen, and 3) if the cheek slitting had been shown in a different angle and the sewing had been seen from a different, non-close-up angle...would the impact of the story or the film be significantly changed in any important emotional or visual way? For me, the answer is "no." The cheek sewing, for me, established that the Captain really was an evil not of this world, worse than anything Ofelia had encountered in her world...but the director, from a practical, visual, emotional level, did not have to use close-ups of the needle going in and out of the flesh to establish that point. When I saw the movie the theater was packed. Believe me, when those three scenes came up all I could hear was "Yuck" from the audience with undertones of either delight or revulsion. It seemed to me people were caught up in the bloody close-up moment, just as they would be in some gory teen horror flick, and not in any expanded meaning about the characters or the story.
The movie, itself, despite this directorial indulgence, remains a fascinating and thoughtful film that will most likely be remembered and watched years from now.