El Laberinto del Fauno (Pan’s Labyrinth)

Are the fantasies we concoct in our minds, the nightmares that inhabit the darker recesses of our psyche any more fearful or ugly than the atrocities that are committed in “real” life?

Of course not.

Then why do we fear our imaginations, our ideas or our dreams? Why do we build systems and institutions to control and repress them? Why treat the wistful and innocent imagination with which children understand the world as a passing phase, a simplistic understanding?

El Laberinto del Fauno is a magnificently written, crafted and produced film that explores the relationships between reality and fantasy, fate and destiny, family and love, power and freedom.

The film presents us with two interwoven genres historical drama and fantastic quest; two narratives of lost fathers; two competing claims for our understanding of “reality.”

That the film, in the end, leaves itself open to several interpretations is result of its narrative craft – it’s filmic thoroughness, rather than a consequence of some storytelling laziness or a cover up for a lack of conceptual clarity.

In the end being able to choose interpretations is satisfying, not just because of the relentless tragedy of the story, but because this film, like life, comes down to choices; to follow one path or another, to remember or to forget, to believe or not to believe, to have fear or to live with hope.

[tags] El Laberinto del Fauno, Pan’s Labyrinth [/tags]