Sunday, July 13, 2008
It's a pretty good weekend when you go to the movies and see two of the most visually stunning films you've seen all year. First there was Hellboy 2, and then there was The Fall, and this is going to lead me to another criticism of Pan's Labyrinth. It all keeps coming back to Pan's Labyrinth.
The Fall covers a lot of the same ground as PL, and while it's hard to really say which one is more visually amazing (they are both pretty spectacular), I think The Fall is a way more effective, complex and satisfying emotional experience. Much like Del Toro's film, it contrasts the fantasy life of an imaginative girl with the harsh reality that surrounds her. What The Fall really succeeds at, and what I think PL kinda fucks up, is that it establishes a solid basis in reality, and hinges the movie on a relationship between two characters that we become emotionally invested in. Both films draw parallels between the real world and the fantasy world, but The Fall really sells how the personalities of the characters shape the story the girl imagines in her head. Both films are a bit melodramatic, but there is a nuance and depth to the characters in The Fall that I think PL lacks; instead it settles for caricatures.
I don't know, I'm sure some folks feel different, but when the girl died at the end of Pan's Labyrinth, I didn't have much of an emotional response outside of "Wow, that's pretty fucked up." The stakes aren't that great that the end of The Fall, but I felt myself give more of a shit. Probably because the girl feels more like a real girl living a real life.
It's a shame, though, because I think The Fall comes really close to being a great movie, but loses it's way at the end. I was pretty swept up in the movie, and was finding myself increasingly touched by what was going on, and right when the movie should have made it's deathblow and really given me goosebumps or made the old tear ducts overflow.... it kinda meanders too long and doesn't find the right emotional climax. On the one hand, I'm glad they didn't go overboard with the melodrama, but on the other hand they really blow it by making the payoff too casual. Especially a shame since it's got the audience right in the palm of its hand at that point.
2 comments:
I'm with you all the way on this one except I enjoyed the ending. There was something both pathetic and funny with his jump on the bridge not even being used but us lingering with the kids who liked the movie alot anyway.
that cut off part of my comment.
I would have liked to have seen more of the movie done in the strange and unique styles of the two fall sequences. If the director uses that directing style with some of the same eye for location scouting his next movie could end up great or closer to great.
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