Kat's Labyrinth

I should have known that if the pain was bad enough to make me cry and whine at length that it wasn't an ordinary day's worth of pain. So of course I ended up back at the hospital on Thursday. 24 oz of barium, 2 CT scans and 5 hours of prodding and poking later we discover that I have--shocking, I know--more kidney stones. So that's where I've been, and that's why I missed Sista's party and my one and only chance to dine with the the 'coma. And you can bet I've been pouting about it, too.

In an effort to help my husband feel as though he's still married to a human being and not that strange mutant brain thing in a tub on Battlestar Galactica, I loaded up on phenergan and vicodin so that we could take in a showing of Pan's Labyrinth.

These are my impressions--sort of a tape-delayed liveblogging.

Pre-show:

--These people behind me better quit the chatter when the actual movie starts.

--If that guy kicks my seat one more time I'm going to send him home without a foot. Or I could solve the chatter problem and the kicking problem by shoving his foot in his mouth.

--NBC really wants us to watch The Black Donnellys. Anything is better than Studio 60. Although now I've sat through this "first look" I feel as though I've already seen the whole program. Oh, and John Singleton should sue them for ripping off most of the plot of Four Brothers

--Why is Tom Hanks producing a British Romantic Comedy? He must be really bored.

--Man, I wish I were getting ready to watch 300 now. I could go for some killin'.

Movie:

--Man, I still read Spanish pretty well. It's a shame that when people actually speak in Spanish they do it so fast.

--I can't believe they felt the need to subtitle this. (The screen reads "Espana, 1944". Helpfully, the subtitle reads "Spain, 1944". I feel slightly spoonfed.)

--Any movie that begins with a child bleeding is not necessarily a feel-good film.

--There's a lot more of the Spanish Civil War and a lot less of the Pan's Labyrinth than I thought there was going to be.

--What is wrong with the world today? Some guy in the movie gets his face bashed in by a crazed military officer and the chatty group behind me laughs. As though watching a boy being beaten to death is really a riot.

--When do we get to Pan's actual labyrinth?

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I won't say anymore, because it'll spoil the film for any of you who haven't seen it. I did appreciate it as a well-done story. But once again, we're talking about a film that has been completely mismarketed to American audiences. I understand why the marketing team did this. In this Harry Potter age, people are doubtless going to be far more eager to see happy fairy tale with great special effects than a dark, brooding tale about the Spanish Civil War. It's the same reason that more people buy Thomas Kinkaid paintings than prints of Guernica.

I'm irked, though, because as the author of the Wikipedia entry says "The film is not a Peter-Pan-like fantasy but is a film about the brutality of Franco's fascism. " Good times!

Of course, the poster art, the trailer, several reviews and commercials all emphasise the fantasy element and downplay the brutal torture and war elements. I've read several places where Pan's Labyrinth has been likened to The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe. This would be so if LWW had featured 10 minutes in Narnia and focused the rest of the time on the bleakness of life in a smoldering, bombed-out London.

I say all of this just to let anyone know who hasn't seen it that yes, it's a good film but no, it's not the forget-your-troubles kind of fantasy the ad campaign promises.