The Official Review Thread of 2006

[ITALIANO]

In all the time Damien has posted here, I have seen 10 times more references to foreign-produced features than in your posts. He's regularly celebrated foreign directors over their American counterparts. His age has also given him more years than you to watch and understand and appreciate the nuances of foreign cinema.

Ah, ok, so you mean that you THINK (hope?) he has seen more movies than I did. I wouldn't be so sure, but good to know that you can't be, either.

As for my posts containing too many anti-American references, you may be right, but if it's so it is because, like it or not, most of the absurdities I read here are due not necessarily to lack of intelligence, but to that cultural, deeply limitating American approach I have referred to. And I just point out that - any time I detect it. Those who are less influenced by it understand my point of view and, if they don't agree with it, discuss it with me, here or in private (where they usually show their more civilized side). The others can't deal with it and just get upset.

And by the way, I happen to LOVE American cinema - maybe not the recent one, but definitely the "golden era" one. It's the cinema I grew up with - and I know perfectly well that it can be very creative and very good. One of the reasons why I love it is because - not always intentionally - it mirrors the tensions of a society which I find endlessly fascinating, with an honesty that Americans themselves not always show.

As for violence - I partly agree with you. It's possible that America won't be the last country in the world to express such a pervasive violence, both against others and against itself - on many levels, not just the physical one. But trust me - in this historical period, and with such intensity, it's the ONLY ONE.

[Leeder]

You know, for a second there I had forgotten why I stopped posting here (actually, let's not discriminate, on the Internet period). Thanks for the reminder, fellows!

I'm not blaming anyone in particular; I just always wish people held more scrupulously to one of the words in the board's name (can you guess it? It starts with a D). I don't think that I have ever been a regular on a message board that wasn't eternally in danger of teetering into a fit of name-calling and negativity -- at the extreme, they start reading like the inmates took over the asylum. For those who do not necessarily thrive on conflict, the Internet is not an ideal environment.

I do find it oddly funny that the very same conflicts are still going on so many years later -- same issues, same players. It's all a bit arrested.

PS: I CANNOT BELIEVE that you're arguing on the subject of who has seen more movies, like it's supposed prove something. This is schoolyard taunting stuff. I've known people who have seen reams of movies, and are still complete idiots on the subject of the movies.

[OscarGuy]

Personal Insult: "Oscar Guy, there is more sublety and depth in one sentence written in my broken English than in any long post written by you."

What do you call that? Don't try to climb on a high horse when you blatantly bad mouthed me.

As I said, my opinion on Pan's Labyrinth is not at issue here. It has nothing to do with my post. I don't care if you're anti-American. I really have no problem with that as I often find myself disenchanted by a great deal of America philosophy and action. My problem stems from your constant need to somehow put an anti-American spin on every argument. You can't argue without it. It's a tool for you like a cook would use a whisk with eggs. That's what gets on my nerves. Not everything has to do with America or its ideals.

In all the time Damien has posted here, I have seen 10 times more references to foreign-produced features than in your posts. He's regularly celebrated foreign directors over their American counterparts. His age has also given him more years than you to watch and understand and appreciate the nuances of foreign cinema.

I don't deny that a lot of American cinema has a tendency towards excess and I can't say I love more than about 10% of what the US produces each year. The reason it is this way has nothing to do with American creativity. It has to do with Studio interference, audience stupidity and financial feasibility. That's why America's output is so frequently violent and lacking in meaning.

So, I don't disagree with your sentiments about American cinema. I disagree with your inability to form an argument that doesn't reference America. America isn't the only country in the world capable of unnecessary violence and it most definitely won't be the last.

[ITALIANO]

If you went for a month without insulting someone, while still posting opinions, I'd be absolutely shocked. I don't think you could do it. You don't have enough self control.

I never personally insulted you, while you have attacked me often and without any self control (there is an interesting post in which you compared me to Hitler - do you remember it?). So, I'm sorry, but I don't accept lessons of good behaviour from you.

It seems that you can't understand what I write - maybe because my English is far from perfect, or maybe for other reasons. Others do, thank god.

We know by now that you don't like me and that I am anti-American (is this a crime?). I am not anti-AmericanS, by the way - I recognize a brilliant, open mind when I see it and I know that this has no nationality. I have the greatest respect for intelligence, and on this board I have found several intelligent Americans - even among those who don't necessarily agree with me (quite interestingly, they are also those who seem to be less irritated by my posts). But yes, I am anti-American if by "American" you mean a certain general cultural approach which I will always fight against - but always, Oscar Guy, explaining WHY. And I will go on doing it.

And in the end it's content which really matters, not form. So, ok, I'm terrible, you hate me, I am pedantic... You'll notice that AGAIN I won't reply by saying what I think YOU are - it wouldn't be nice. Let's go back to the real subject instead. I'm still waiting for two things. Your analysis of "Pan's Labyrinth" and the reason why you said that Damien has watched more movies than I did. These are facts, Oscar Guy.

[ITALIANO]

It's amusing, Italiano, that when people here agree with you in disliking a well-received film they are "seeing through it" but when they recognize as dreck a film you can't see through (did someone say American Beauty?), they are philistines who can't handle the "truth."

.

I never said that "American Beauty" was a groundbreaking masterpiece - I just defended some aspects of it (and, most important, I explained why). But it's not a movie I particularly cared for.

And this happened years ago. I don't understand what "American Beauty" or Ingmar Bergman - I know, it's fashionable to put him down now, but I don't follow fashions or groups - have to do with "Pan's Labyrinth". This is what I was discussing here. Why should we change subject?

[OscarGuy]

If you could form an opinion that didn't drag down another culture or insult someone, perhaps I'd have a bit more respect for your opinions. However, you have never once refrained from being condescending or disapproving of anything and everyone who doesn't share your own personal ideals. I didn't post to discuss Pan's Labyrinth. I posted to call you out on the self-aggrandizing crap you post incessantly.

These opinions of yours are as self-righteouos and pedantic as those violence-loving Americans you rail against. I'd go so far as to say you're as much of a zealot as the religious reactionaries that permeate American society and with whom I equally as strongly disagree.

If you went for a month without insulting someone, while still posting opinions, I'd be absolutely shocked. I don't think you could do it. You don't have enough self control.

[Leeder]

I actually have problems with Pan's Labyrinth akin to Italiano's. Its overarching theme... reality swelling up to overwhelm fantasy... is a common one in print fantasy but a rare one in cinema, where the pull of the visual is often far too strong to resist. So I'll give it points for trying something different. But if that's the case, shouldn't reality be a little more... real? The film seems gleefully populated by caricatures, not only Sergi Lopez's captain, who takes on aspects of Gwynplaine from The Man Who Laughs, but all the rest -- suffering mother, square-jawed resistance fighters, plucky maid with a secret. All archetypes, none of them really taking on any sort of life. I realize that this must be part of del Toro's intentions, but I think that the film is flawed from inception, unfortunately... and less charitably, it reeks of laziness, falling back on stock characters instead of bothering to fill them out in a way to make them distinctive and tangible.

And I certainly agree with Italiano that the effect of the violence is blunted and made unreal, in a way so common in Hollywood films. HOWEVER, as Damien suggests, this is arguably in the tradition of the Grimm fairy tales so I'm inclined to let that slip a bit. Still waiting for that fantasy version of Irreversible, myself.

Here's another beef: the whole film takes place in such a rigidly anti-sexual world. Think about it: even the villain, who does all but kick a puppy, is never a sexual threat, per se. This is strange for a movie with Pan's name, the most bestial of fertility gods. This is slightly in the Victorian tradition of invoking Pan as a poetic muse of nature, but underneath that there is a terrifying/exciting Bacchanalian sexuality. Rather, Pan's Labyrinth resembles that other Pan, Peter Pan; it's all about that latency moment, that immediately pre-sexual moment, and ends with a similar fantasy of freezing there. But why, in a R-rated fairy tale, refuse to explore the sexual undercurrents which underlie so much of this material?

I suppose my biggest problem with Pan's Labyrinth is that it acknowledges its sources so clearly -- Spirit of the Beehive and even The Devil's Backbone come straight to mind -- in a way that reinforces how it comes up short in comparison to them.

[Damien]

I agree, Italiano. Víctor Erice's Spirit of the Beehive is a wonderful film (and one which del Toro has citted as an inspiration, as well as Carlos Saura's equally wonderful Cria).

Given that Pan's Labyrinth was nominated for numerous Goyas, BAFTAs (winning Best Foreign Language Picture), Spanish Cinema Writers, Fotogramas de Plata. London Film Critics. Sant Jordi and Spanish Actors Union awards, I don't think it's accurate to say that the picture is not as loved on the east side of the Atlantic as in the States.

It's amusing, Italiano, that when people here agree with you in disliking a well-received film they are "seeing through it" but when they recognize as dreck a film you can't see through (did someone say American Beauty?), they are philistines who can't handle the "truth."

Speaking of not being able to see through things, I was very amused by what Dave Kehr -- in my opinion, America's best film critic,despite his blind spot for Robert Zemeckis -- had to say about one of your boys:

Mr. Bergman remains identified with the great art-house boom of the 1960s and '70s, when his films were seen all over the world, were almost invariably hailed as masterpieces and consistently topped critics' polls and all-time-best lists. But film aesthetics have since drifted away from the literary-theatrical underpinnings of his work, and his reputation has declined as those of more cinematically engaged, visually and aurally expressive filmmakers have risen. This release already seems out of date, a slightly musty holdover from days of repertory programming long gone by.


and

After being overrated for so long, he’s probably in danger of being underrated now, but I certainly don’t find his films as dramatically or visually expressive as those of Resnais and Antonioni. For all of his groundbreaking frankness about sexuality and the tolls of Lutheran repression, his film technique has never evolved much beyond that of a stage director taking his first timorous steps in the new medium — the Sam Mendes of his day. And when he strains for “cinematic” effects, as in “Persona,” the results tend to be blunt and obvious, very far removed from the stylistic subtleties of contemporaries like Rossellini, Ophuls, or even Richard Fleischer. The most valuable player in the early Bergman films is probably his cameraman, Gunnar Fischer, who mastered a naturalistic, low-tech lighting style that anticipated Raoul Coutard’s work for the New Wave directors (who were much influenced by “Summer with Monica”). Bergman broke with Fischer after “The Devil’s Eye,” though Sven Nykvist was hardly a shabby replacement.

[Okri]

Really? While I can barely stomach "Funny Games," I thought "Cache" and "The Piano Teacher" were brilliant. Very few moments caught me offguard like the one in "Cache" did.

[taki15]

I was more taken aback by his comment that he didn't find any effective brutality in it - only superficial violence. What the hell on earth is "effective brutality?" What was he expecting? Senseless beatings and the murder of innocents are disturbing in of themselves. It is isn't necessary to dwell on them.

Perhaps he was expecting something more intellectualy disturbing, like what's in Michael Haneke's films(of which I am no fan).

And Oscar Guy don't be surprsised of that anti-American mentality that permeates Italiano's every argument. Here in Europe it's considered almost an obligation for a self-respected liberal to bash constantly the US, even when there is absolutely no reason to do so. It's the in thing to do.

[ITALIANO]

You're so laughably predictable...

Look who's talking...

Oscar Guy, there is more sublety and depth in one sentence written in my broken English than in any long post written by you. Personal opinion, of course (though I guess that others here might agree with me), but since you seem to hate anything I write here, I don't see why I shouldn't say something about what YOU write. I'm sure you will accept this - it's just fair.

As for Damien having seen more movies than I did - well, give me the proof. Now. But a rational proof, ok?

And since you are here, tell me why you think that "Pan's Labyrinth" is a masterpiece (and why you think it's better than "The Lives of Others"). But not in your usual, "I-love-it-because-I-love-it" style. Something more profound, my friend. I'm sure you can do it.

Big Magilla, what I meant was simply that when an act of violence is committed by a cardboard character, it's often on a cartoonish level - the absence of any psychological depth prevents it to be truly effective. It's safe violence, without much impact. And while it may be very realistic from a physical point of view, it's still unthreating to the viewer - this is why the movie is very clever.

[Penelope]

I don't think the violence was meant to be a "realistic" counterpoint to the fantasy, which is how some have interpreted it; in fact, I'd say the "real world" storyline is just as much a fantasy as the other half of the film -- and Italiano is right in that it reflects an American sensibility because if the fantasy is Walt Disney-ish, then the "real world" storyline is Sam Peckinpah-ish, like a cartoon combined with a western.

Now, that doesn't mean that I can't appreciate the film; I loved Pan's Labyrinth, but I can understand where Italiano is coming from.

[Okri]

I was more taken aback by his comment that he didn't find any effective brutality in it - only superficial violence. What the hell on earth is "effective brutality?" What was he expecting? Senseless beatings and the murder of innocents are disturbing in of themselves. It is isn't necessary to dwell on them.

I'm not sure what Italiano was referring to, but I never felt that the brutality was all that intense. More specifically, I never felt that the child was retreating to a fantasy world in response to the "brutal" world around her, as much as she was a pill with an active imagination. So yeah, the violence did feel somewhat superficial because I was not convinced it triggered her reaction.

[Big Magilla]

I didn't fall under the spell of Pan's Labyrinth the first time I saw it. It took a second viewing on DVD for me to appreciate it so maybe that's what's needed here.

While Pan may be offically a Spanish film its sensibilities reflect those of its director, a Mexican born, U.S. resident. Del Toro has stated that his inspiration for the film came from childhood nightmares growing up in his grandmother's house so Italiano is, in this case, correct - it is not a Euoropean film in the strict sense, but, really, so what?

I was more taken aback by his comment that he didn't find any effective brutality in it - only superficial violence. What the hell on earth is "effective brutality?" What was he expecting? Senseless beatings and the murder of innocents are disturbing in of themselves. It is isn't necessary to dwell on them.

[Penelope]

Uh-oh, here we go again!