Trailer Tuesday: Pan's Labyrinth

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Innocence Has A Power Evil Cannot Imagine.

Pan's Labyrinth won 3 Oscars at the Academy Awards on Sunday evening. While the Spanish language film missed out on the prestigious Best Foreign Language Film award - The Academy has always been resistant to fantasy films - Pan's Labyrinth dominated the evening's top 'technical creativity' awards, winning for Cinematography, Make-up and Art Direction.

From director Guillermo Del Toro, Pan's Labyrinth has been heralded as a magic realism masterpiece (scoring 96% at Rotten Tomatoes), and a dark fairy tale for adults. The plot synopsis:

Written and directed by Guillermo del Toro, PAN'S LABYRINTH is a thrilling, violent fairy tale set in post-Civil War Spain. Ivana Baquero stars as Ofelia, a young girl who moves with her mother, Carmen (Ariadna Gil), into the home of Captain Vidal (Sergi López), in an abandoned mill in the middle of dark, dangerous woods. Vidal is leading his team of soldiers against resistance fighters--and he will do whatever is necessary to kill every last one of them. As Vidal bosses around the pregnant Carmen, a flying creature leads Ofelia through a garden labyrinth and into an underground cave ruled by Pan (HELLBOY's Doug Jones), who believes that Ofelia might be the lost princess of this strange yet magical place. To prove she is royalty, Ofelia must complete three tasks, each more difficult and terrifying than the previous one.


Unfortunately there is no indication when Pan's Labyrinth will be showing in South African cinemas - it is the highest grossing Spanish language film in US box office history. When Pan's Labyrinth does debut here, however, I'll be there. It looks absolutely amazing. And gloriously dark, definitely not for the squeamish.

Comments

Wasp Jerky said…
It is absolutely amazing. Pretty violent (I had to turn away a couple of times, which is almost unheard of), but easily one of the best films to come out last year. Hope it comes your way soon.
1:32 AM
Pfangirl said…
Oh, believe me, I hope so too. I was keen to see Del Toro's Devil's Backbone and it was never distributed in SA to my knowledge.
9:11 AM
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