'Pan's Labyrinth' Review: Del Toro's Got the Magic in Him
Guillermo del Toro’s eerily fantastic war movie, “Pan’s Labyrinth”, has an ethereal quality about it. There are a number of childhood fantasy cliches and plot contrivances, but despite these seemingly grounding factors, “Labyrinth” takes flight like the imagination of a child.
The plot is Narnian to say the least. A young girl named Ofelia, in the midst of the Second World War, is taken by her mother to stay with her step father, a fascist captain, and soon discovers an underground, labyrinthian, alternate reality. The story takes place in Spain, but the more dreamy parts in the realm of creativity.
Del Toro, along with production designer Eugenio Caballero, and cinematographer Guillermo Navarro, has crafted an exquisitely realized world, full of wonder, life, and possibility. It is one of the most eye-poppingly colorful movies I have ever had the pleasure of viewing. Each shot is so high contrast, in fact, that many scenes seem almost fake. Unfortunately, there is a fair amount of fakery involved, thanks to an almost over reliance on computer generated imagery. Those parts of the film haven’t aged well, but del Toro makes up for it with the beautiful make-up, hairstyling, and costuming that went into designing the two labyrinthian creatures, Fauno and the Pale Man, both played by the true thespian, Doug Jones.
Those two creations are brimming with mystery and childlike reverie, residing somewhere on the line between stop motion animation and puppeteering. They move in a rather chunky way, graceful in their jerky walks. They are, in essence, timeless.
The rest of the movie, too, is a timeless tale of discovery rooted in war. Ofelia is a
curious girl, who probably winds up in one too many childhood endangerment scenarios, akin to something one would see in a Narnian movie or Hogwartsian story.
No matter, though, because even when the plot contrivances (you really just had to eat those grapes?) start to pile up, the wondrous and intoxicating score composer Javier Navarrete pulls you in, casting an enchantment-like halo over the proceedings. The score is whimsical when it needs to be, magical in most moments, and even occasionally threatening, when the story’s villains are up to no good.
Yup, the villains are still basically Nazis, even if they don’t heil Hitler. But that small derivative component doesn’t stop del Toro from bringing on the emotions and never letting up. Because no matter how familiar the story may seem, del Toro’s eye for sweet, sweet visuals, and ear for a fully nourished musical track keep this movie riding a roller coaster up, up and up. Del Toro never lets you take a breather, and you never come off his high, either.
Del Toro seems to thrive on that line between average and artsy, and his films usually end up falling on one side or the other. “Pacific Rim” on the former, and “The Shape of Water” on the latter. “Pan’s Labyrinth”, easily his best, straddles the line perfectly between the familiar and the unknown, slowly drawing us into a realm of fantasy and magic without our knowledge; a world we didn’t even realize we were craving so badly.
{★★★½}