3.5/5 Stars
This is the fourth time I’ve started this review. I keep failing to expres the reasons why I didn’t love the movie like I wanted to. I think, maybe, it’s because the movie Guillermo del Toro delivered is not entirely the movie I was promised.
What was good about the movie? Ivana Baquero, the actress who portrayed Ofelia, was fabulous. Pan (Abe from Hellboy). The fairies/bugs. The cinematography in general. The voice of the male narrator. There were a lot of little things to love – they just wouldn’t knit together properly.
There were far too many missed opportunities.
1. Most painful, the parallel between Pan and Captain Vidal was inexpertly drawn. I think del Toro wanted us to see that Pan (monster on the outside) was not the real monster; Captain Vidal (normal human on the outside) was the true monster. Okay, gotcha – a foil is a standard literary device. But this device works much better as an ‘’Ah ha!’ moment than when we are beaten over the head with it. Vidal is so blatantly heartless and evil as to be absurd from his first scene. It would have been far more effective if Vidal had feigned love for Ofelia and her mother at first, then slowly exposed his evil as he lost control of the countryside (and yet more so if his loss of control of the countryside more clearly paralleled Ofelia’s descent into the Faerie world, but I digress.) Pan, likewise, should have scared the hell out of Ofelia at first – short of being red, he is the embodiment of the stereotypical Satan. As Ofelia became more of the Fae than of humans, she should have seen Pan as less threatening.
2. In fact, I’d say the opportunity for parallels between Vidal’s and Ofelia’s storylines could also have been much clearer. There’s a scene that just screamed out to be a crossroads in the film – both Vidal and Ofelia sit in chairs in the hallway, waiting to hear news of the birth. They sit apart, alienated, when they should have been comforting each other. That’s a beautiful time to begin to emphasize their divergence, with Ofelia gaining in power and confidence while Vidal loses it. Instead, it just seems surreal and misplaced.
3. Ofelia’s little brother was obviously meant to be the symbol of… something. We are never made to understand _what_. Ofelia’s innocence? The future of Spain? The part of the Captain that was forever trying to live up to his father? Hope? Compassion? Hmm… the fairy princess’s mother dies trying to give birth to ___ in the midst of civil war and death. I guess ‘hope’ is appropriate – the old order (Vidal) hands the baby off the the new order (Mercedes). Unless you know the full history of the Spanish Civil War, however, you have no idea what happens to the rebels or their movement after the movie, and so cannot know what the child represents. Maybe he represents the unknown.
4. So. The faerie princess comes back to her world, bringing with her life and happiness and saving Pan and the fairies from fading into nothing. That’s great, my kind of ending, but… so what? Imply a conclusion for us. Does her return, an event we are meant to believe is significant, bring hope back to Spain? Laughter? Does it end the famine? Spirits such as these are traditionally tied closely to the land, so if they are healthy, good things should happen to Spain. She rules the faerie well, and is loved – but what about the human world?
5. Finally, although it seemed to be the largest part of the movie, the human world story doesn’t seem to have much thought spent on it. Every plot point was telegraphed too far in advance:
- There’s a sleeping potion, pointed out repeatedly? Someone’s getting poisoned.
- The housekeeper carries a knife in her apron, pointed out repeatedly? Someone’s getting stabbed.
- Vidal obsesses about the ticking of his dead hero father’s watch? Guess who’s going to force a battle that he can’t win.