"Pan's Labyrinth"

"Pan's Labyrinth" was without any doubt the best movie I have seen this year so far - another movie that escaped me before as I was constantly sailing, working and doing other things - if I remember correctly it won Academy Award and rightfully so because it has all elements of true classic movie no matter what language it was made. I really wonder how did I miss this one the first time around, either I was at sea or (more possibly) my working colleagues were more interested in action movies - maddeningly, they all have some collections with Stallone or Schwarzenegger but hardly ever someone collects movies worth truly seeing. 

Back to "Pan's Labyrinth" - the main protagonist is a child Ofelia who is daydreaming above her fairy tales books while the civil war rages around her. All kind of cruelty is going on around her, soldiers killing each others, people living in a fear, mother re-married a sadistic army captain who in turn is focused to fight guerilla soldiers hidden in a forrest close to his army base. We are aware that times are dangerous but Ofelia is not - like so many children lost in books,she has built her own magic world where fairies invite her into enchanted forrest, the king of underworld is waiting for her and magic creatures expect her to solve difficult heroic tasks (all of this is visible naturally only to her). The "magic" parts of the movie (done by perfection) are contrasted to "real" life where killings, fighting, fear and torture are parts of daily life. Eventually these two worlds collide in a only possible ending that comes as surprise though we could all probably expect it. 

What moved me the most (besides visual beauty of the movie) was the understanding director and script writers had for a children psychology - as a children we all live in our own fantasy worlds (specially kids who are book readers) but this is somehow forgotten once we reach adulthood and move to "reality". To be honest, I don't think I've ever really moved to "reality" since I spend at least half of my day in daydreaming anyway. Creators of this movie understand that children have different point of view, often created as a protection wall against the world (probably like here) - adults have no patience or understanding for this, as shown in several scenes where Ofelia is harshly criticized for actions that they can't understand. Of course, she was told by fairies. I perfectly understood Ofelia since I was kid like this myself, living in my own world, perpetual visitor to a local library and often cruelly reminded of a difference between real life and my books. 

Thinking about the movie this morning, I realized that I don't really know spanish cinematography besides internationally celebrated Pedro Almodovar - we all know about him and somehow unconsciously assume spanish movies are "like that". But he must have been very special and original to rise above hundreds of other directors in his country (not to mention in Europe and than internationally) so my perception was probably completely wrong, Almodovar is only one. Thinking how many "other" spanish movies I have ever seen (besides Almodovar) I realized it could probably counted on one hand, I need to do some research about this.