Pan's Labrynth?

Question

Has anyone seen this film?
Did you enjoy it?
Can you give me brief synopsis?

Answer 1

Yes, and I thought it was great!

(But just so you know, it in Spanish)

"Spain, 1944. Officially, the Civil War has been over for five years, but a small group of rebels fights on unbroken in the northern mountains of Navarra. Dreamy 10-year-old Ofelia moves to Navarra with her delicate, pregnant mother Carmen, to become acquainted with her new stepfather, Captain Vidal, a Fascist officer under orders to rid the territory of rebels. Ofelia, who is fascinated by fairy tales, discovers an overgrown, tumbledown labyrinth behind the mill. In the heart of the labyrinth she meets Pan, an ancient satyr who claims to know her true identity and her secret destiny. But first, she must complete three tasks before the moon grows full. And no one must know: not her ailing mother, or her new friend, Mercedes. Time is running out, for Ofelia and for the rebels. Both will have to battle hardship and cruelty in order to gain their freedom. But, who can be trusted in a time of lies and danger? Is Pan telling the truth...? And if not, who is?"

A great, fascinating movie, by all accounts!

Answer 2

Lipstickit2me and I are soul sisters because those were the same thoughts (although not as eloquently put) that I had about the film.

I really didn't see what all the hype was about; I rented it thinking "Okay, this film is going to be really great, it got good reviews, all my friends think it's fantastic" and was completely disappointed throughout. I agree that it's very cliché, but it is well acted. I didn't like Ofelia at all and had no sympathy for her. If an ugly, frightening-looking fairy monster came to me in the middle of the night and said "Hey, I need you to perform these tasks for me so you can be returned to your father, who is basically Satan", I'd wonder what I ate the night before. Yet she gleefully agrees and, despite being given explicit instructions, is challenged by very simple tasks to the point of nearly dying. If you're going to put so much faith in the fairy monster, why don't you actually listen to what he says? "Don't eat the grapes" and yet, gee, they look really tempting so I think I should have a few! For as mature as Ofelia is made out to seem, she is still a child and isn't that bright.

I'd say most people are going to like it, and I didn't dislike it necessarily, but I could have spent those hours of my life doing something productive, rather than rolling my eyes every fifteen minutes.

Answer 3

well it's in spanish which was the biggest surprise to me ( i didn't read the dvd box closely enough). I found that a lot of the characters are not what you'd expect from a english film (if you've ever seen mexican or spanish tv you'll know what i mean).

It's quite a different film, depends what you like, if you like fantasy films, foregin language films, and something new then go for it,

It's like donny darko meets alice in wonderland meets labarynth (which if you haven't seen is a great film - check out david bowie in it)

Answer 4

I found the movie just OK - I can see how some people would like this film because it has solid acting all around, pretty cinematography and an impressive visual imagination and set designs (fantasy world), but I felt the writing was weak and the faults in the script really bring it down for me and I just couldn’t get past that. Example:

The characters were very 2 dimensional and cliché - desperate woman marries for convenience, cruel military husband, nurturing housekeeper (actually my favorite character – wasn’t she in Y Tu Mama Tambien?), likeable rebels, despicable Nazis, and the cliché that bothered me the most - naive girl (or maybe somewhat stupid -would anyone, even a kid, with a lick of common sense stop and eat grapes in the lair of a child eating monster while time is running out?) For all the people who gave this movie a 10, I wonder if they can remember one line that stood out in their mind? I can’t. Plus, for a movie called Pan's Labyrinth, why is the Labyrinth nothing more than an easily navigated maze that ends in an easily descended staircase to a dull pit where nothing happens other than some dull conversation – I really felt it should have had more exploration of the labyrinth theme.. What is so magical about that?

The challenges Ofelia (the little girl) faced seem arbitrary, unpoetic, tasklike, and none of them really challenged her mind, or her spirit. Compare her choosing the key box on the left instead of the middle to get the knife with the scene in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade where Indy realizes the Holy Grail is the simple wooden cup because that would be the cup of a carpenter. That scene showed both Indy's mind and his expansiveness of understanding humans. Ofelia strikes me as sort of dumbly just following Pan's directions other than her leisurely stroll through the monster’s lair where she disregards the fairies to eat the grape from the table really showed the idiocy of her character. I just couldn’t connect with her and didn’t really even like her, which made the last scene where she got shot, not very compelling – I didn’t even really care at that point. Yeah, the movie looks looks beautiful, with it's elaboeate sets and cinematography and all but it doesn't really make the meaningful connections that it could have with its promising double story line. Many people I talked to mentioned the reaction of the audience at the end of the movie - I took their stunned silence not as a compliment, but more like "What the F…?!” This one gets my 2006 award for Movie Most Over-hyped by Intellectual Critics. I was disappointed because I felt it could have been so much more.

Answer 5

The backdrop for the film is a fascist regime in 1944 rural Spain. It centers on a girl named Ofelia, who is lonely & sad, who lives with her mother & adoptive father ; who is a Military Officer, whose mission was to ride the area where the rebels were. Out of her loneliness, Ofelia makes up a world with fantastic creatures and secret destinies.The post war repression being at its height, Ofelia has to come to terms with herself by means of a story of her own creation. The film won best film of 2006 by the National Society of Film Critics.

Answer 6

Absolutely brilliant - I saw it at Warwick Uni cinema and have purchased it on disc. Really gripping but very sad and bloody ( just like a Brothers Grimm fairy tale)

Set against the backdrop of the Spanish Civil War: A young girl of around 12 years, whose father is dead, and mother is remarried to the local army despot, is going with her mother to the country - they have been ordered there by her new domineering stepfather ( whose sole concern is for his unborn son). She is of a dreamy nature, reading romances and fairy tales. One of which becomes alive for her and she lives in it as well as in the waking world. It cuts between the fairy tale life and the real, very unpleasant life, of army a small outpost fighting the resistance movement.

Answer 7

I own it and I really like it. But it is a very harsh (and sometimes violent) "fairy tale." A little girl is subjected to the loss of a father and her mother's marriage to a cruel and violent man. While a civil war surrounds her, she creates a fairy tale in which she is a lost princess who must prove herself by passing several tests. In the end, the story is either tragic or incredibly uplifting...

It all depends on whether you believe the fairy tale.
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.
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Worth watching. The subtitles are not a problem.

Answer 8

Yes I have seen it. It is quite hard to watch as it is subtitled (I am British). It is about a girl that has an amazing imagination (or is it her imagination) and she goes on different journeys where she has to complete certain tasks for this creature. She and her mother move to live on an army base as her mother is seeing this horrible dictator guy who is trying to kill rebels. It is a hard one to watch and quite nasty at the end, it is definitely a dark film not at all how it looks on the cover.

Answer 9

The people before me have said it all. Wonderful film. I was particularly touched by the scene where the girl talks to her unborn brother through her mother's belly, and she tells him an amazing fairytale. Enjoy it!

Answer 10

EXCELLENT MOVIE. it's all in spanish, though.. so you have to read subtitles... basically the king of the underworld's daughter died and he's spent all this time opening portals all over the world looking for her reincarnation. his servant finds the girl, and to make sure she's the real incarnation of the princess, makes her do several tests. but again, excellent movie (i'm 18 years old and i enjoyed it, even though it's a bit fairy tale-ish)