Honestly, I was so surprised that the faun wasn’t a bad guy that I was truly shook when he turned out to be just another normal dude working for the king of the underground.
I really like Guillermo del Toro’s general cinematic style: the colors, the usage of structure, and the flow of things really make his films artistic in the more traditional sense. I love the way that the colors in his story always seem to tie in with things, and the last scene where Ofelia is dying and the blood is dripping down her hands? The contrast between the bright red and the dark blue there? That was truly visually shocking. It truly made me want to weep for her. And the greens that Ofelia constantly wears, the contrast between the outside world’s dark and brooding blues and darker colors compared to the warm colors (red, yellow, gold, brown) of the fantasy world, all of the ways that del Toro used colors to tell his story made this film, at least visually, an amazing experience.
However, having watched some of the Cabinet of Curiosities Netflix show that del Toro is helming, Nightmare Alley, Crimson Peak, and The Shape of Water, I feel like I have a general handle on del Toro’s work, and for the most part, I feel conflicted about it. I mean, Nightmare Alley was fine; not great, but not terrible, and Cate Blanchett makes any film worthwhile, and the rest of the cast too made the film not a waste of time. Cabinet of Curiosities I felt was overtly gory for no particular reason (the scene where one of the ladies stabs her husband to death multiple times for no apparent reason except to show that she has gone completely mad comes to mind). Although since del Toro very rarely pulls back from the violence he depicts, I suppose I wasn’t really shocked when I saw this. Crimson Peak was beautiful, and I had a wonderful time trying to decipher the meanings behind the colors, but the plot was boring, and from the very beginning, even if you don’t expect incest, you can pretty much guess that the brother and sister are somehow together. Del Toro’s piece de resistance, The Shape of Water, too, was stunning aesthetically, but was it really the masterpiece that it was hailed as? I don’t know.
I have the same conflicting feelings about Pan’s Labyrinth. I certainly didn’t hate it; the Pale Man was actually terrifying to watch in the suspenseful lead up to Ofelia eating the grapes, the story being split between the war outside and the inner trials of Ofelia was refreshing and interesting. But then you have an almost cartoon-ish villain in Vidal, who seems to hate the world and everyone around them for no other reason than being a fanatic fascist. Which could be seen as character development, but is also such an overdone trope that really made him untrustworthy the moment I laid eyes on him. Honestly, why do people hate stepfathers and stepmothers so much? Are they really all that bad? The movies would say yes.
I read a comment somewhere that said, really, despite all the gore and the violence in his films, and despite the fact that often (and I am learning so more and more) his main characters die or have some sort of half-tragic half-happy ending, Guillermo del Toro is an optimist at heart, and that all of his stories are fairy tales. I can see that fitting in here. This is definitely a fairytale, and what really struck me in the end was: what if there was no Princess Moanna? What if there was no other world, and really, this is just the sad story of a little girl’s death at the hands of her cruel stepfather, and the rest was just a story made up in her head?
I did love the final lesson of the story: that sometimes, courageous disobedience is the right thing. Think Rosa Parks, Gandhi, peaceful protests and even violent ones. Like them, Ofelia protested hurting her brother, and it was that protest that helped her re-enter her world. Like them, it was Mercedes’ protest against the fascist captain that helped end his reign over the outpost. So disobedience as a virtue: love that. I really respect the way that del Toro has made all of his films fairy tales in some way, and yet none of them fit into what we think of as fairy tales. After all, as Ofelia’s mother Carmen says, fairy tales are seen as being only good for little kids. Del Toro takes that belief, turns it on its head, and in the end, we are all in awe as he creates his own fairy tales, reminiscent of the original stories of olden ages.
I will also say, before I send this out into the world, that I watched this film on IQiYi, which is a Chinese platform for films, so who knows if they cut out some important parts that I missed and that’s why I’m not understanding this film. But I read the Wikipedia page before I wrote this, and I still don’t know why it is considered so amazing. Maybe I’m just too much of a pessimist?
Anyway,
Happy Monday!! (ED results are coming out this Friday; wish me luck!)
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