Pan's Labyrinth

[AnaKhouri]

I found a copy of this amazing movie at 1/2 Price Books for $5.98 (wow!) and I am currently watching it (it really is amazing, even if it makes me cry). As a sometime horror author, I only wish I could come up with something as terrifying as the Pale Man. :eek:

I am reminded of the first time I saw the movie, in a theater. A man came in and sat in front of us. He had two kids with him, maybe 8 and 10. My husband and I were horrified; we debated in whispers if we should say something to him. Pan's Labyrinth is rated R, and in Spanish with subtitles. Now these kids could easily have spoken Spanish or been old enough to keep up with the subs, but the R rating...based on our previous experience with Guillermo Del Toro's companion film, The Devil's Backbone, we knew Pan was going to be violent and disturbing. We didn't know if the man had somehow ignored the rating, or if he knew and had decided it was OK for the kids. So we kept quiet.

15 minutes in (when the Captain is ramming a broken bottle into this poor guy's face) they left. I guess he didn't notice the rating, or had underestimated it.

Anyway. Should we have said something? I don't want to interfere with anyone's parenting. Feel free to respond with advice if any similar situations arise, or to gush about Del Toro's genius, or to chat about his upcoming release Hellboy II (which is more child-friendly). ;)

[Shangri-laschild]

I can't wait for Hellboy 2! And I do agree with you on the other movie. It was really cool and very beautifully done. Not sure if I would have said anything or not.

[Gravekeeper]

Gah, the Paleman <shudder>. Everything was done with make up and traditional effects too. No crap ass CGI. The guy that played the Paleman could only see out through the nostrils and only if he turned his head to the side, hehe.

Fantastic movie.

[AdminAssistant]

As Robert Rodriguez said (In response to a woman telling him, "My 7 year old just LOVES Desperado), "If the parents are stupid enough to let their children watch those movies, I'm not going to feel responsible for the effects." That said, I watched all kinds of movies as a child - spaghetti westerns, war movies, Dirty Harry (if Clint Eastwood was in it, we watched it). It's up to the parent to decide if the child is mature enough to deal with the content.

The guy realized how violent it was going to be, and took his children out of the cinema (with I hope a minimum amount of disturbance). No harm, no foul. And I feel that the MPAA is a little rampant with the ratings (ZOMG Blood!! Rated R!!!). So some parents may feel that a PG 13 or R movie isn't 'that bad'.

I do understand where you're coming from though. I went with some friends of mine to a late-nite showing of Prince Caspian. We were hoping to avoid the "flood'o'kiddies" that accompanies any film from the Disney empire. We were wrong. There was one woman with an infant, numerous toddlers, and large groups of children 5 and older. At 10 pm. :eek: Which was my bedtime until I was 13. (That was the same night that I did give a death glare to a 6 foot tall woman who sat down right in front of me, so I couldn't see. She made a cat-butt face and moved down to another of the many open seats. I hate being short.)

[Heksubah]

I love that movie. I saw it three times in the theatre. Twice on my own and then once I dragged my best friend along.

The time that the two of us went a woman was sitting a row or two in front of us with a boy 6-8ish. I kept wondering if I should say something to the woman and my friend, even though she hadn't seen it, had seen reviews and knew this was NOT for kids. At the scene where the man got beaten to death with the bottle we figured they'd leave. Nope. That horrible mother let her child sit through the entire movie. What sort of parent would let their child see something like that? It isn't right. Granted, I love that movie! It just isn't for kids. :(

[AnaKhouri]

No crap ass CGI

Hooray for no CGI! The first Hellboy DVD came with a 'making of' featurette that was really interesting and showed how little CGI was actually involved; the Hellhounds were actually guys in suits with remote-controlled tentacles on their heads. The designers wrote a completely new computer program so the tentacles would move independently of one another. I have also seen the guy who was in the faun suit in Pan and he is hella lanky! :)

I prefer no CGI whenever it is possible. Sure, CGI is cheap and looks good, but when you see some Harryhausen stop-motion...or guys in rubber suits...or animatronics...you know the people who made those really, really cared about what they were doing, enough to put in a ton of work. Like the skeleton fight in Jason and the Argonauts. Harryhausen said it took him weeks to get the skeleton fight right. It's a nice feeling to see someone is that dedicated to their art. CGI feels like cheating, after you see something like Jason, or Sinbad, or King Kong.

[ShinyGreenApple]

I've still yet to see Pan's Labyrinth. However, I understand that a lot of people went into this with their kids, apparently ignoring the rating, thinking it was going to be another Narnia or LOTR. They usually ended up walking out rather quickly. Of course, these are probably the same nitwits that would later go to a news station and complain about the violence and blood in Sweeney Todd.

"My kids looooved Jack Sparrow. How dare Depp do a movie like this!" and bla bla bla :rolleyes:

With the resources available today . . . gah. But that would make sense.

[Gruesome]

I hated that movie. And I really wanted to like it, and I expected to like it. Perhaps I am missing something, but the violence in the film seemed very unecessary to me.


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If the story was about the little girl, then we didn't need to see a bunch of the brutality where she wasn't there. The Captain could have been showm to be just as heinous a monster without all the violence, like when he tortures the guy for information or executes people at then end of a battle. And when the guy gets is leg amputated, we actually see a few frames of the saw going into a fake leg. Why?

Now I'm not offended by blood or gore, but it seems to me it has to be used for a purpose, and it seemed very gratuitous in this film. Like in that last Rambo movie - we WANT to see all those bad guys get blown to hell, its pretty much the point of an action flick. But CRUELTY need not be GORE, and in fact it seems potentially more powerful to leave the extent of the Captain's cruelty to our imagination.

The fantasy sequences were BEAUTIFUL and incredibly well done, but since its all in her head (debatable point, I suppose), the menace and reward of her fantasy world is completey negated. So she has a vivid imagination - very cool - but any trials or hurdles she has to pass were dreamed up by her, and thuis she knew the answers ahead of time and knew she was in no danger...you see where I am going with that?

I still feel like I am missing something funfdamental about the film, like maybe I am expecting it to be something it isn't or placing an unfair or imprpoper 'label' on the film which would cause me to see it the wrong way - I dunno. I was disappointed.

[Evil Queen]

I loved Pan's Labyrinth. It was very reminiscent of Jim Hensen's MirrorMask. I love dark Fantasy films. There aren't enough of them out there.

[Parrothead]

Just to nit-pick a bit: the actor who played the Faun (Doug Jones) also played the pale man, and will reprise his role as Abe Sapien in Hellboy 2.

I love Doug Jones's acting. He's the only reason I saw Fantastic Four 2 (he was the Silver Surfer.)

/nitpick