I love movies. I can see as many as 6 in one week I the theater.
I often like movies others don’t. (Knight’s Tale anyone?)
But some how I am out of step with everyone on this.
Last week I saw the movie Pan’s Labyrinth.
It is receiving rave reviews (96% of the 131 reviews at RottenTomatos.com are positive). It is receiving award nominations (Golden Globe, SAG, and Oscar). I have even received e-mail from friends telling me to go.
I heard an interview with the writer/director Guillermo Del Toro. I loved everything he said. “adult fairytale.” “importance of disobedience.” “importance of stories and fantasy.” “for a movie to be about all time it must be about a specific time.”
The movie itself is beautiful. The magical creatures and worlds are amazing. Wonderful, amazing and scary. (The faun puts the Chronicles of Narnia to shame) Not a candy coated fairytale, but what a child’s imagination is really like.
With all this being said, I found the movie horrifying. It was anything but hopeful and it was brutal beyond recognition. There were four times in which I had to cover my eyes because the violence was so extreme and real.
And maybe that was the problem. I have a feeling I am going to see Smoking Aces in the next few weeks and won’t even flinch. The violence will be so cartoonist it won’t be believable.
But Pan’s Labyrinth might be a fairytale, but the violence is real. Way to real for my taste.

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