Mini-Cast #4 - Pan's Labyrinth - First Half

Two or three weeks ago I saw Pan's Labyrinth for the first time in twelve years. It has existed in my mind since 2006 as one of the very greatest movies I've ever seen, maybe the best movie I've seen since 2000. But upon reacquaintance, I wonder if I've underestimated it. It is so good, in fact, that it exists on the kind of plane to which a once-or-twice-in-a-generation movie can ascend: Citizen Kane, The Godfather, Pan's Labyrinth... It's that great.

I have never seen it except in the movie theater. The first time I saw it, I was a tear-stained wreck, and when we emerged under the lights, I saw that a friend of mine was even more of a wreck than I. The second time I saw it, I dragged a bunch of friends, who seemed to agree with me that it was incredible. I also made my father see it, and he liked it but didn't like it nearly as much as I because he didn't think Pan's Labyrinth was realistic....

It always comes back to these questions of the real versus the not real. Consuming sci-fi and fantasy is like playing a game in which you see how long it takes audiences to cry betrayal over a series which obsessed them for years but can't possibly meet all of their expectations. Nearly the whole point of conceptual fiction is that you can do literally anything with it, and because all manner of series take the series through every conceivable narrative permutation, there eventually comes a point where there is no conceivable trick left. The author has exhausted every possible option, and like George R. R. Martin, has already taken the story in so many directions that there is no way to tie it all together to create an ending that's both satisfying and surprising.

A few months ago, before Game of Thrones ended, I wrote a piece on my Times of Israel blog which was not my best, where I charged Game of Thrones of being frivolous in part because it's fantasy. Well, in retrospect that's obviously a frivolous accusation, and one that I'm not even sure how much I believed when I wrote it. My distaste with Game of Thrones isn't with the fantasy per se, my distaste is with how fantasy so often panders to an audience's need for overstimulation, and how the need of so many millions around the world for overstimulation like you see in Game of Thrones becomes a narcotic whose requirement they can't help bringing to their real lives, where they seek experiences well beyond what an ordinary life promises; and if they can't find good experiences they'll pursue bad experiences - like electing fascists president or trying to overthrow capitalism forever.

I honestly don't know if that's any more true than the idea that the insane might get violent ideas from consuming violent video games and movies, or that men will be more likely to treat women badly if they consume media that demeans women. All three notions are simultaneously true and false down to the level of each individual at every moment.

But while Game of Thrones has become a cautionary tale about the problems of fantasy, Pan's Labyrinth is a supreme examplar of its glories. The minefields of fantasy literature are so easy to step on, that when an artist gets it right, the achievement is that much greater, and by having used the world of infinite imagination, the artistic sublimity reverberates that much further into the infinite.