Sunday, July 7, 2013

A Religious Rorshach Test: PAN'S LABYRINTH

Guillermo Del Toro is more than a film director, more than even an artists, IMHO. He is a man who understands myth like few others I have ever encountered. Though not a Christian, his philosophy fascinates me to no end. I could listen to the man speak for I don't know how long. He is in the same class as Grant Morrison and Alan More: a neo-pagan type who knows depth but seems unable to grasp the profound truth that Jesus Christ is 'depth' itself made manifest.

Del Toro's films capture the depths and shallows of human experience. He rightly detects that our experience of life points to the fact that life itself is more than meets the eye. Subjectivity is a doorway to an objective truth: that life is deep: deeply good and deeply evil. PAN'S LABYRINTH, Del Toro's greatest film, is in the running for best film of all time, in my book. It certainly takes the place of best fantasy film of all time. I simply love it. It is Spanish-language, but it explores themes so universal you almost don't need subtitles to understand it.

It follows a little girl, whose family is embroiled in personal and political intrigue in the very dregs of the Spanish Civil War. The girl's stepfather is abusive, and her mother is suffering while pregnant. Her stepfather is an official of the Spanish army and the rebels are literally at the gates of their home together, which they have only recently come to live in. The girl finds on the grounds the doorway to a magical world, which allows her to both escape from the horrors of her daily life, and to find a way to influence and fight against those horrors. Every part of the film is rich in symbolism: the characters, the colors, any part of every scene may have a specific message, intended by Del Toro Himself. Watch the 'making of' featurettes after you watch the film, they help and will enrich the experience.

One feels, watching the film, that Del Toro has touched on something truly cosmic here. It is more than just a film: it is a confession of faith, his faith. That confession, however, is left deliberately vague and open to interpretation. Watch the film yourself, and you may see something totally different than I do. Two friends watching it at the same time may see completely different films. I find it interesting how religious commitment changes what the person sees. I have an agnostic friend who watched the film and only saw a child's hopeless escape from a terrible world through imagination. I saw a film about a child's imagination reaching beyond the world of sense experience and opening a door that made true redemption possible. Del Toro has created a film that says a million different things all at once. And I commend it to you. Check it out, show it to friends, and discuss the varying opinions. It is one of those films that can change the way you look at the world.

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