Pan's Labyrinth [R] - Really [R]

Discussion in 'Movies, TV and Music' started by oman, Sep 7, 2007.

  1. oman

    oman Member

    Jan 7, 2000
    South of Frisconsin
    Okay, so I was skimming through this a second time. After I saw it the first time, I thought -- cool, she went up to live with her Dad and mom in Moon Heaven.

    After watching the second time, I thought. Huh, she dreamed all that nonsense, and thankfully, before she died, she had a pleasant little dream about joining her "father". But then she just died.

    So what happened? Just died or went to the moon?

    FYI, I also thought Rupert Pupkin his it big on Jerry Lewis' show at the end of the King of Comedy. The time was just right for "Hello, my name is Rupert Pupkin!"
     
  2. Rafael Hernandez

    Rafael Hernandez Moderator
    Staff Member

    Mar 6, 2002
    I think its open to interpretation but to me she did get to the underworld and the key to the mystery is the mandrake root.
     
  3. srd....

    srd.... Member

    Apr 20, 2004
    Cork City.
    i had this discussion a few weeks ago after my girlfriend saw it and said how nice it was she got to go home.

    i chimed in with,but it was all in her head....etc.

    it really is up to you to decide her fate i guess.
     
  4. Sapphire

    Sapphire Moderator

    Jun 29, 2003
    Club:
    Manchester United FC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    For me, trying to decide if it's real or not misses the point. The film doesn't really seem to privlege the real over the fantastical or vice versa, as many fantasy films involving children ultimately tend to -- the fantasy is never explained and reconciled with the real world. The girl never grows out of it or gets past it, or learns its relationship to the "real" world of adults. I think that the brilliance of this film is that the fantasy element is ambiguous and, like many of the mysteries in life, it's not as easy as saying it's absolutely real or absolutely not real. Who knows in the end if the afterlife is real or not; you have to die to find out, so you can't really know if it's real. The film works the same way; you just don't know in the end what was real, and it really doesn't matter, in a way.

    I think the point of the film, since it is, after all, about people showing courage in the face of fascism (and moral right in the face of moral wrong), is that one should act with courage and morality, regardless of whether or not the fantasy (of religion or whatever other system of belief) is real. The fantastical creature tells her she must save the tree, so she saves it; it doesn't matter if the creature is real or not, she saved the tree which was a good and courageous thing to do. That action is an allegory for the doctor saving the guerilla by smuggling medicine to him, which is also good and courageous. Later on, however, the girl doesn't listen to the creature, and sometimes it has negative consequences (when she loses her vigilance and eats the fruit) and sometimes it's the right thing to do (when she refuses to hand over her brother). I really think that the film has a kind of simple moral message in its ambiguity: whatever the reason (a magical creature told you to do it, your gut told you to do it) one should act morally, even when it requires courage and sacrifice to do so.
     
  5. oman

    oman Member

    Jan 7, 2000
    South of Frisconsin
    FYP
     
  6. oman

    oman Member

    Jan 7, 2000
    South of Frisconsin
    Heh, just joshing, but...

    Actually, it's not. It might be beside the point. But asking the question doesn't really miss the point.

    A cynical view would say that her eyes indicate that she possibly realizes that it was a dream in the end. Notice how the filmaker goes back to her glazing eye after the "coming home" scene.


    Given that the subject was the spanish civil war, I think it does matter. The idealism of the Spanish Civil War was followed by decades of facism.

    Was there a pointlessness to the idealism?

    So act morally if your gut tells you or a creature tells you? Isn't there a bit of an irony that she only succeeds when she disobeys the faun and refuses to spill the blood of her brother, thus rejecting fantasy?
     
  7. Sapphire

    Sapphire Moderator

    Jun 29, 2003
    Club:
    Manchester United FC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Fair enough.

    That's a plausible interpretation, but not one that I share. I don't think that the film definitively answers the question on the relationship of fantasy and reality. The film could make it clear and it doesn't, imo; it's left ambiguous, and it's the ambiguity that interests me.

    It's not that the idealism is pointless, it's that it's ambiguous. Much like the fantasy creature. The creature gives the girl instructions which allow her to work for good . . . up to a point. Ultimately though, she has to decide where the morality for her actions lies outside of the "real" world around her and the fantasty world as well. The fantasy guides her well up to a point, and then it becomes dangerous. Isn't this an apt analogy for Civil War idealism? And much political idealism for that matter? Aren't many political ideologies morally problematic when explored thouroughly?

    I don't think it's ironic at all. It's ambiguous. The creature is neither good nor bad, nor is the political ideology for which it's an analogy. The creature guides her to do some good things, but she rightly resists it when it asks too much from her. She decides, she doesn't let anyone else decide for her. That's the point of the film in my view; it's about being an autonomous agent within a political ideology. (Then again, I know nothing about the director's politics, so I could be way off here; this is just what I took away from it).
     
  8. oman

    oman Member

    Jan 7, 2000
    South of Frisconsin
    You're losing me here. Many things in life are ambigous. I agree the filmaker was ambigous about the fantasy/reality. However, idealism isn't ambigous. It's directed and focused.

    I disagree. The faun bribes her by telling her that she can prove to be the princess. It's nothing more than a bribe, especially to a girl with a ailing mother and a cruel stepfather.

     
  9. Sapphire

    Sapphire Moderator

    Jun 29, 2003
    Club:
    Manchester United FC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    We obviously have two very different views of the film, and I'm not particularly interested in moving anyone to my way of thinking; I just presented my reaction to the film.

    Just to clarify a couple of things.
    It's moral status is ambiguous. (Maybe I am being sloppy with my language; apologies if so).


    This is one of those places where I don't think we're going to agree. I see what you're saying, but my reading of the film is totally different here. It guides her up to a point (as ideology should, I believe the film argues).

    I don't see the first statement leads to the second. When I talked about ideology being ambiguous; I mean that it's morally ambiguous. Many political ideologies are, including democracy (majority rules can get ugly).


    Another place where we disagree. She was heroic. She saved her brother. Not a failed struggle. (In terms of the political allegory of the film, this is where the individual stands up to the barbaric elements of political ideology.)

    Hmmm, the film is clearly a political allegory, at least in my mind. So, why would the filmmaker end it by just not clearly finishing the story? You agree that it's not clear, but reject that it could be intentionally ambiguous to reflect the ambiguity you acknowledge is in other parts of the film. Why is the child world ending necessarily definitive?

    Also, if it is clear, what would either definitive ending mean? She simply dies -- it means her struggle was completely in vain and so it's best not to fight fascism? Or that it's futile to do so. Or, she really goes and lives on the moon -- I don't even know how to interpret that one. It doesn't seem like a plausible reading of the ending given the rest of the film; it wouldn't make any sense. Or perhaps someone who interprets the film that way can help me see how it would.
     
  10. oman

    oman Member

    Jan 7, 2000
    South of Frisconsin
    Good points.

    First ending, fantasy is just that -- fantasy. Doesn't really say anything about morals or good and evil. Just points to fantasy as, at best, a coping method for children that allows them to study morality in controlled, fantastic conditions.

    Second ending -- fantasy is real, and she ascends into the princessship of the moon (in the story, her father the king allegedly lives on the moon, at least according to the faun).
     

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