Sprint to the Oscars - Pan's Labyrinth

The Sneaky Cheetah continues his quest to see every nominated film before the Academy Awards!

Pan's Labyrinth
Nominated for Best Foreign Language Film (Mexico), Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen, Cinematography, Art Direction, Makeup, and Music (Score)

Dark. Poetic. Creepy. Magical. Haunting. Sad. These are the adjectives going through my head after watching Pan's Labyrinth, much like the striking images from the film keep replaying in my thoughts. It's a perfect little fairy tale, albeit one the kids shouldn't see. It's the Neverending Story and Alice in Wonderland tossed into a blender with Silent Hill. The film actually operates on two levels. It's set in WWII era Spain after that country's civil war, at a camp manned by Spanish soldiers (bad guys) trying to root out the revolutionaries (good guys) from the forest. Ofelia is a young girl brought to the camp when her mother marries the captain. The second setting is the magical world of Ofelia's imagination she creates to escape her unhappy existence. It's not a happy fantasy. It's dark, dirty, and scary. Reflections of Ofelia's hard life.

The Art Direction is the star of the film: the crumbling gothic Labyrinth, the wild verdant forest, the orderly yet confining camp. It's a unique vision created by writer/director Guillermo Del Toro, who's become a master of such work.

The makeup job may get the Oscar for the creation of one of the scariest creatures I've ever witnessed on screen.This guy to my left. The Pale Man. Holy Shit, what an entrance, what a scene! The Pan character is also a wonder of prosthetics and mechanical gizmos that make his ear's twirl, and those reverse legs of his were not CGI. It was all makup and movie creativity.

The score is a melancholy blend of strings and flutes that fade in and out of the film. Scores are hard to analyze on just one viewing, but Pan's conveyed the emotions of the film. That's the point isn't it?

Pan may be the front runner in the foreign language category, simply because it'll be the most viewed here in America. It may also have a shot at the screenplay award. It's a perfect little story. And very tragic. But eternally memorable. A

Pan's Labyrinth recieved 6 nominations and it's first noms for everyone of the honored. So to Director/Screenwriter Guillermo del Toro, Cinematographer Guillermo Navarro, Art Director Euginio Caballero, Set Decorator Pilar Revuelta, Makeup Artists David Marti and Montse Ribe, and Composer Javier Naverrete, welcome to the show.

IMHO: If any film I've yet seen deserved the Sound Editing award, it's this one. Pan had his own unique sound every time he moved, something like opening doors/sliding furniture/snapping twigs/creaking wooden floors. There were incredible sounds for the bugs/fairies, even the chalk made cool sounds. It was an aural feast. And sorely deserving the Oscar for Sound Editing.