Sunday, December 02, 2007

Myth, Fear, and Magic


My dreams are filled with Jungian archetypes, but none of them take the forms of mythical, fairy tale figures. Nor did I really ever have a developed sense of magic and wonderment when I was a child. DW, OTOH, has always had a love of the magical, wonderous, credulous side of childhood. Last night, we got around to watching Guillermo del Toro's brilliant Pan's Labyrinth on DVD. She totally got everything about the film, while I had to fill in some gaps by watching the director's explanation of the power of childhood mythology. This is a film about choice, disobedience, belief, and coming of age into a very nasty adult world. That the true-life side of the story was really part and parcel of the fairy tale was something I didn't figure out until the very end, when the two clearly come together. This is a great movie, one that may be viewed in my home as many times as GoodFellas or Network.

Of the movies I saw that were made in 2006, I'd have to put Pan's Labyrinth and Alfonso Cuaron's Children of Men atop even my beloved Martin Scorsese's The Departed and Little Miss Sunshine, a movie I still adore.

3 comments:

Maddy said...

First and third yes! Haven't seen the second, but if we're a match maybe I should?
Cheers

Randy said...

Oh, all of those movies are good ones. Children of Men is a little depressing, however.

Don said...

So many movies I need to catch up on, this being one of them as well as Little Miss Sunshine and Children of Men.