Pan’s Labyrinth

Movie Information

In Brief: Given the awards push behind The Shape of Water, I thought it might be an opportune time to revisit the film that made Guillermo del Toro the oddest bankable director working today, Pan's Labyrinth (2006). When my illustrious predecessor reviewed this one over a decade ago, he put it pretty bluntly: "This isn't just the best film of 2006; it may be the best film of the decade." Ken Hanke would later call Pan's Labyrinth "one of the most remarkable films of the 21st century," and I remain inclined to agree with him, although I doubt he could have predicted the film's resurgent relevance to a world in which fascism has returned from a seemingly certain demise like Michael Myers at the end of Halloween. Del Toro's surrealist sensibilities were cemented with this fantastical fairy tale of Franco's Spain, and while the stylistic cues drawn from Buñuel and Cocteau are still evident in later work like Water, the prescient political subtext on display in Pan's Labyrinth makes it well worth a contemporary rewatch.
Score:

Genre: Fantasy Horror
Director: Guillermo del Toro
Starring: Sergi Lopez, Ivana Baquero, Ariadna Gil, Maribel Verdu, Doug Jones
Rated: R

The Asheville Film Society is showing Pan’s Labyrinth on Tuesday, Jan. 30, at 7 p.m. at The Grail Moviehouse as part of the Budget Big Screen series. Admission is $6 for AFS members and $8 for the general public. Xpress movie critic Scott Douglas will introduce the film.

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