Completely forgot about this...

Woops, my bad.

My hypothesis for my auteur project will be :-

How to represent the imagination - The Del Toro approach

Pan's Labyrinth

Imagination. It varies between people, for some it is small, others big. Guillermo Del Toro is widely regarded as having one of the most vivid imaginations in the filmmaking world. His films are full of strange, magical worlds inhabited by magnificent and deadly creatures. Throughout his Spanish language films in particular, these worlds are created by children desperate to escape from the terrors of the Spanish Civil War. 

'Pan's Labyrinth' (El laberinto del fauno) simply is a masterpiece. The visuals throughout the film are stunning and beautiful yet monstrous. Del Toro is a pioneer of inventive and magical cinema, faultlessly blending aspects of horror and fantasy to fascinate and shock the audience. With this film, he has truly outdone himself. It may sound cheesy and slightly stupid, I know, but this film does that to you. Immediately I wanted to go back and pick it to pieces and find out the true meaning behind the make-up and cinematography. 

The story follows twelve year old Ofelia, a young girl who dreams of fairytales and longs for excitement in her life. She and her heavily pregnant Mother travel to the mountains of Spain to stay with her mother's new husband and the father of her child. Becoming increasingly bored, she wanders off and discovers a labyrinth hidden in the forest, a magical fortress housing fairies and the beautifully creepy faun, Pan. Announcing himself as her guardian, Pan presents the naive child with three tasks to complete before the full moon. From here the narrative jumps between reality and the fantasy world, often with the two realms mixing together. The story draws comparisons to fairytales but one aimed at adults more than children, with literary references scattered throughout including Alice in Wonderland to The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe. But unlike other films of this genre the fantasy elements are not the main focus, with the reality scenes playing just as much importance. Its a sort of fable where Ofeila is learning lessons from her trips to the fantasy world that can be used in everyday life. 

Coming back to the monsters of the film, how one man can dream up/create such horrible and majestic creatures is a mystery. They include the toad living in the womb of a tree and the true horror of the tale, The Pale Man (seen above). With loose skin dripping off him and eyes in the palms of his hands, he shouldn't be allowed to be seen and definately deserves a place in the most terrifying monsters in film history. However the most brutal and sadistic of all the villains is Ofelia's stepfather Captain Vidal. He is the driving force of everything that is evil in the story, his charm and matter of fact beatings of innocent men standing out as extremely cruel.

In terms of cinematography, things don't get much awe-inspiring than this. The aspects of both the fantasy and real worlds are blended together faultlessly with fairies flying through the air into the houses and up to Ofelia. Long, sweeping shots are used to show the grandeur of the labyrinth and religious/birth related imagery is constant throughout. This just adds to the grand tale, building new aspects for the audience to get lost in and immerse themselves.

An instant classic, and the film that Guillermo Del Toro deserves to be remembered for. 

My rating : ***** 

A career in posters.

Time to glance at Guillermo Del Toro's catalogue of films starting with:

Cronos (1993) Debut feature from the Mexican director about an unusual scarab-shaped device and the consequences it has on an old antique dealer. Praised at Cannes, winning the Best Picture award partly due to the imaginative story and implicit themes of religion.

Mimic (1997) First international production and widely considered to be Del Toro's worst film to date. The narrative is interesting yet formulaic with a swarm of cockroaches spreading a deadly disease.

The Devil's Backbone (2001) Returning to a Spanish/Mexican feature starring Del Toro regular Federico Luppi. A gothic horror set during the Spanish Civil War, regarding a young boy in an orphanage and the spirits that reside there.

Blade II (2002) Switched back to an American production with this adult comic book movie. Strangely Del Toro was brought on to direct the sequel to the Blade franchise, without having been involved in the first one. Went to become the most successful of the trilogy.

Hellboy (2004) His second foray into comic books was the more child friendly 'Hellboy' where he worked with regular collaborators Ron Perlman and Doug Jones. This film enabled him to create strange and magical creatures which would be used in later films.

Pan's Labyrinth (2006) Considered Del Toro's best film to date, the adult fairytale is seen by the director as a 'spiritual' sequel in terms of themes and narrative to his earlier film, 'The Devil's Backbone'. The film premiered at Cannes and won numerous awards across the globe.

Hellboy II: The Golden Army (2008) Due to the previous success of 'Pan's Labyrinth', Del Toro was able to fast track the second part of his Hellboy saga. The film has yet to be released yet, but early buzz is looking good.

After work on the four year shoot of 'The Hobbit' and its sequel is complete, Guillermo Del Toro has expressed interest in a range of potential projects including Frankenstein, Tarzan and an adaption of H.P Lovecraft's classic novella 'At the Mountains of Madness', and maybe even a third Hellboy film.

Eh who now?

You may think that you haven't heard of the Mexican director Guillermo Del Toro, but chances are you have heard his name briefly in passing and once you realise his past features, a resounding "ahh" will echo around the room. The visionary director started with small (but successful) Spanish films until moving onto the little heard of 'Mimic' which was an American production. From here he continuously switched from Spanish films to American films, churning out comic-book films 'Blade II' and 'Hellboy' most recently.

But what really got him noticed over her was the superb, award laden modern masterpiece 'Pan's Labyrinth'. Described by Del Toro himself as an adult fairytale, the film shocked and awed in equal measure. Currently the director is finishing up work on the Hellboy sequel, before moving onto the long awaited prequel to the 'Lord of the Rings' saga, 'The Hobbit'. A great choice of director in my opinion, and with Peter Jackson on board as executive producer how could they go wrong?

Well i hope that cleared up a few queries people were having about my choice of auteur and i will try to update my blog whenever i can.
Ta :)