zajímavý a mimořádně slibný :)This is not to be confused with a review. I'm not a critic and I hate reviews, so I wouldn’t write one even if I could. This is the informal reaction of a movie lover, offered in the manner of Jackson Pollack throwing paint at a canvas—emotional and messy. (Anybody who feels cheated not getting a plot summary and all that review-y stuff should stop reading now, because this will surely frustrate them. I won’t be giving a single story detail. They’ll be able to get that kind of thing in plenty of other places, if that’s what they want…but I, for one, urge everybody to avoid reviews and see the film knowing as little about it in advance as possible, as I was lucky enough to do.)
Bear in mind also that my reaction can hardly be deemed unbiased, because Guillermo is a dear friend and I love him. Consider that caveat a given. Now, putting my personal feelings toward him aside as best I can, let me say this:
I think PAN'S LABYRINTH is a masterpiece. The real deal. A perfect film. A gem.
I had the pleasure of hosting an informal “friends and family” screening of PAN'S about a month ago on the old Samuel Goldwyn lot here in Hollywood (right across the street from the venerable Formosa Café, known to movie buffs as the place where Lana Turner tossed a drink in Lt. Edmund Exley’s face in L.A. CONFIDENTIAL). It was my way of welcoming Guillermo back to Los Angeles after his extended stay in Spain filming PAN’S…he was gone almost two years and sorely missed by his friends! Eighty or so people showed up, and I don’t think there was a person attending who wasn’t knocked out by the film. We gave it a standing ovation, and a sincere one. Jeff Goldblum came out of the theater afterward looking like a five year-old who’d just seen his first movie, eyes wide as proverbial saucers. Clive Barker was grinning like a proud papa (or a homicidal maniac, I couldn’t really tell). I was dazed and positively high with admiration. Somewhere in the ether, I swear to you, I could hear Jean Cocteau applauding.
PAN’S LABYRINTH is a return to the notion of film as art—one man’s vision, from the heart, the gonads, and the gut. It's gorgeous and unique and very moving. As a filmmaker, I found it both humbling and inspiring—humbling because it sets the bar so high; inspiring because it shows what passionate filmmaking can and should be. It is a gauntlet thrown down, a declaration that movies should count for more than just opening weekend grosses, that “Ars Gratia Artis” shouldn’t just be a forgotten slogan in a dead language decorating a roaring lion logo.
I’ve seldom seen a movie more in love with film—with the very idea of film. It rolls around in its love of cinema like a dog in grass. Every frame exudes a love of movies…but not the easy, referential kind that recycles other films in the guise of “hip homage.” This is a purer love born of a filmmaker’s desire to be daring, original, to take chances. It is Guillermo’s gift to anybody who ever had their breath taken away the first time they saw a Kubrick or a Scorsese or a Spielberg bust a new move in cinema. It reeks of classicism—the way it’s shot, paced, edited, scored. It’ll feel old-fashioned to some—but that is one of its greatest strengths: there isn’t a whiff of MTV-era filmmaking about it.
Letting my personal feelings sneak back in for a moment, can I just tell you what a thrill it is to see a friend as deserving as Guillermo hit his artistic stride?
Is it a huge film? A blockbuster? The next LORD OF THE RINGS? No. The only things epic about PAN’S LABYRINTH are its emotional landscape and the power of its imagination—otherwise it’s intensely personal and intimate, small enough to hold in the palm of your hand. Though it has its share of thrilling moments, it’s not a thrill ride…it’s a rumination, a meditation, a journey through fairy tale magic and gut-wrenching realism. That it blends these things at all is ambitious, that it blends them perfectly is a miracle. Stephen King, who just saw the movie yesterday and loved it, wrote me an email calling it “an R-rated fairy tale,” and that’s as accurate a description as you can get.
Those who know Guillermo only by his more commercial films are in for a big surprise. Those who know him by his more personal films like DEVIL'S BACKBONE...well, they're in for a surprise too. PAN'S is definitely in the DEVIL'S BACKBONE camp (one could say it’s a spiritual companion to it), but even DEVIL'S BACKBONE—excellent though it is—just had its ass handed to it.
In a world where movies have largely become marketing commodities micromanaged by business school graduates, PAN’S LABYRINTH stands like a rare and radiant flower that unexpectedly grew and blossomed atop the crap heap. It reminds us that “art for art’s sake” is still possible in film even amidst all the franchise-and-tentpole “product” being shoveled year-round onto our screens. I bless del Toro for the reminder.
Go see it. Drag your family and friends. Tell strangers. We must support movies like this. Like government, we get only the movies we deserve, so vote with your box office dollars. Next November, when conversation rages about what movie you’ll all go see that weekend, convince everybody to go to PAN’S LABYRINTH. If your dorky friends are hypnotized sheep who can’t bear to pass up whatever big, shiny Hollywood poop-fest is being sold to them with their Happy Meals that week, go by yourself.
For once, do yourself and other film lovers a favor and pay to see a small but important film on the big screen. Don’t be a dickhead and “wait for the DVD.” If we support films like PAN’S LABYRINTH, perhaps we’ll get more daring and original films once in a while. If we don’t, all we’ll be left with are RUSH HOUR sequels and BEWTICHED remakes...and nobody to blame for them but ourselves.
Frank Darabont |
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