children of pan

we did a double-feature of pan’s labyrinth and children of men last night.

both are outstanding.

pan’s labyrinth reminds you a little bit of jeunet/caro’s city of lost children: a fantastical fairy tale led by a strong little girl. it looks gorgeous and very beautiful, but is also pretty dark and spooky, more on the shadowy side of fairy tales. indeed, legend is that even the making of the film is a little of a fairy tale: “Guillermo Del Toro is famous for compiling books full of notes and drawings about his ideas before turning them into films, something he regards essential to the process. He left years worth of notes for Pan’s Labyrinth in the back of a cab, and thought it was the end of the project. However, the cab driver found them and, realizing their importance, tracked him down and returned them at great personal difficulty and expense. Del Toro was convinced that this was a blessing and it made him ever more determined to complete the film.” definitely shouldn’t be missed. plus, (unsurprisingly) it also has the wonderful maribel verdú, from y tu mama tambien.

children of men was frightening. not in the way that a horror movie is frightening, but in the way that films like requiem for a dream are frightening. it’s the horrors of the possible future that scare the bejeezus out of you: a future where no more children are being born, thus no more hope, no more possibilities, and then humanity turns cruel and mean resulting in an ugly clawing descent into extinction. it brilliantly amplifies the things we’ve been recently aghast about: immigration fears, homeland security totalitarianism, abu ghraib-style detention and torture, and takes them to their extreme conclusion resulting in a world that literally turns your stomach. at least it did mine, unless it was just the mouthfuls of popcorn. i just read the article in american cinematographer about this, and for the most part, they used natural lighting instead of setting up lights for all the shots, which gives it a more realistic look. also, they avoided the traditional A-B-A-B intercutting, and kept to longer shots with handheld cameras, which gives the movie a more documentary feel and further adds to the realism. brilliant.

see them both! which you could, hypothetically speaking, at the sf shopping center cinema, by seeing pan’s labyrinth and then strolling into children of men right after, all for the price of one ticket. hypothetically speaking, that is.

Posted at December 31, 2006 7:07 PM