Pan's Labyrinth

Last weekend I had the privilege of seeing Pan's Labyrinth in Columbia's old Missouri Theater. It's a very beautiful movie, with one of the greatest stories the film industry has seen in the past several years. The photography was wonderful and the special effects were amazing. It was very fun to watch.

The real-world story was sad, funny, and intense all at the same time. It would have made a good movie all by itself, and it set the escape to the labyrinth world up perfectly.

The intensity of the movie was pretty fantastic. They weren't afraid to show Ofelia's "father" get his mouth ripped open with a knife, and then show the man stitching himself back together. As if that weren't enough, the idiot decided he needed a shot afterward (with an open wound to the mouth, lest we forget) and they showed us that too.

I never became emotionally invested in this movie. I was sad for Ofelia, the little girl, but not that much. That is probably my biggest regret about an otherwise stand-out picture.

I loved the dual-story idea, but I felt like the labyrinth/imaginary world line was very underdeveloped, and the transitions between the two weren't always good. Ofelia would screw something up really badly, but it would end up not mattering later on - in either world. If she failed at a task, there was no sense of urgency that she needed to get back and fix things until the faun decided to reappear out of nowhere. There also was no regret over failing the task. So I guess my question is, are they trying to make her childish, imaginary world (I was under the impression that i was supposed to be real) underdeveloped and less vengeful because that is how a child would imagine it, or am I reading way to much into it? Probably the latter. I also thought the ending was a little ambiguous, but I'll stop there because someone doesn't like spoilers.