Marvelous Propaganda!

Rating: 8/10 (13 November 2007)

As I said, this is great propaganda, but not *perfect* propaganda. Perfect propaganda works on you without you realizing its propaganda. "Pan's Labyrinth" is perfect propaganda.
However, the weaknesses of this movie as propaganda is also its strength as a movie. The French audience was fairly well familiar with the atrocities of the FLN (the Algerian rebels) so the filmmakers couldn't just not address that as would be ideal. They still manage to soft-pedal the atrocities of the FLN against Arab Algerians and secular Muslims without ignoring them entirely. The hinted at religious extremism of the FLN probably works against the movie's intended cause more today than it did in 1966. And while the filmmakers cleverly play-up class differences between the European Quarter and the Casbah, and imply that the FLN only started targeting civilians randomly after the cops did it first, it doesn't *quite* the justify the bomb attacks in infidel sites such as bars and dance halls when the camera lingers so long on the faces of the young people and children.
In short, the film is as likely to justify for the viewer the eventual use of torture to end insurgency as it is to horrify the viewer. That was certainly my reaction.
But the filmmakers inability to totally ignore horrific side of the insurgency -- the side beyond any attempt of romanticization -- is what makes this story so believable. You will probably feel more ambivalent about the end of this movie than the filmmakers intended. That's why it is still so watchable.