Rob Dufour - Pan's Labyrinth

I decided to head over to campus one night to check out the movie, Pan’s Labyrinth, which the Spanish Club was putting on. I heard that the movie was a must see, so I was very anxious to get to watching. As the movie started and the Spanish started coming out of the speakers, I realized why it was being played by the Spanish Club. Luckily, they conveniently put the English translation at the bottom. I always feel a little ambivalent about subtitles, because they certainly add to the mystery as well as the authenticity of the film; however, I felt like I was missing key shots in the film as I was reading as quickly as I could. Not to mention that the film was a visually beautiful work of art, and the times that I could watch the scenes intently, I noticed how much they added to the emotion evoked throughout the film.
One of the unique aspects of the film is how the director allows the viewer to experience the same feelings that the protagonist is experiencing throughout the film. The plot is essentially a little girl trying to decipher between right and wrong, and what is real and what is fake, while living in a confusing and corrupt world. The culmination of these feelings take place through a labyrinth she that she finds, which will eventually test her true self through the twist and turns along her path of realization. The movie allows the viewer to experience the same, as the movie provides multiples stories that branch out and eventually flow back together. All the while, we are shown the juxtaposition of good and evil, reality and fabrication, throughout the film, which often times can make us second guess ourselves and send us in the wrong direction.
In the end, the girl learns not only to follow instructions, and that there are prices to pay for failing to abide by them, but also to trust her own instincts about right and wrong. In order to find her true self, she found the strength to break the rules imposed by authority and stand up for what is ultimately right. After the film, I was thinking about the terribly original idea of someone developing their own consciousness of right and wrong, and how important it is establish a moral code of your own while living in such a tainted and constructed world.