Guillermo del Toro, imbecile

IN THE NEWS
Pan’s Labyrinth is the first movie since The English Patient that the critics loved, and I absolutely hated. I’m no fan of the writer/director of Pan’s Labyrinth, Guillermo del Toro, but I was willing to give him another chance. Unfortunately, the excruciating experience of sitting through Pan’s Labyrinth had the reverse effect: I now believe that del Toro is an artistic, political, and moral idiot.

Normally, I’d be giving you a “spoiler alert” at this point. However, the movie itself will spoil your day far more than any plot details I might reveal here, so I don’t know if the phrase “spoiler alert” applies, exactly.

The movie asks us to care, to some degree, about the plight of a young girl who is the lost princess of some faerie-like realm. (This fantasy plot line may be happening completely in the mind of the child, or it may be real.) Unfortunately, in the real world, life is so horrific that it’s impossible to care about magic keys, giant toads, and friendly pixies. The number of murders, beatings, and torture sessions are so many that you’ll quickly lose count. You’ll also wonder whether anyone will be left alive in the corner of Spain where the movie is set.

Since Guillermo del Toro is a moral idiot, the movie doesn’t feature actual characters. There are people who do things, which is a substitute for actual character development. Since the villain is a sadistic army captain, the script is merely a vehicle for him performing unspeakably cruel, violent act after another. It’s as if del Toro concluded that, if the captain was on screen, he had to be doing something horrible. Using a bottle to smash in the teeth, then the face, of a prisoner was just the first of many, many, many moments when del Toro’s creativity was focused on new ways to damage and violate the human body.

With these monstrosities unleashed, who cares about the three tasks the supposed princess has to perform to regain entry into her magical kingdom? In a way, it doesn’t matter whether the fantasy plot was real or not—escapism seems morally and politically ridiculous, when rabid dogs like the captain just need to be put down before they kill anyone else.

I wonder if film critics who have gone ga-ga for Guillermo were paying any attention to how silly the plot was. Here are a few examples:

• Why was this movie set in 1944, if the Spanish Civil War was already over by then?
• Were these the most inept guerrillas imaginable? They light fires near an army post in the middle of the day, so that a soldier can say, “Look, smoke!”
• What was the point of the maid giving the guerrillas a key to the storehouse, if--as someone in the movie rightly points out--the guerrillas could simply have used a bullet or a crowbar to unlock the door? (Answer: the whole point was to expose the maid as a rebel agent, so del Toro could film another person being terrorized, brutalized, and killed.)
• Why did the guerrillas throw a precious ampule of antibiotics into a camp fire? Wasn't this medicine supposed to be extremely valuable, and didn't they know that glass doesn't burn? (Answer: This weak plot device existed so that the doctor who supplied the partisans with medicine could be caught, terrorized, brutalized, and killed.)
• Why was a captain in charge of only a dozen or so soldiers?
• Did these soldiers ever bother to patrol? Apparently, military incompetence afflicted both sides in the Spanish Civil War. Or the post-Civil War. Whatever.
• How many guerrillas were there? In spite of losing quite a few fighters in an earlier battle, by the end of the movie, the partisans clearly outnumber the tiny contingent of soldiers. The guerrillas, in fact, seemed to outnumber the villagers we see briefly in another scene. With superior numbers, why didn’t the guerrillas attack long before? (Oh, right, because both combatants were astoundingly incompetent.)

Interviewed on Fresh Air, Del Toro burbled about how irrelevant political questions are. I kid you not, he actually did say (to paraphrase), “From space, national boundaries are invisible, and people look just like people.”

Wow. Deep. You’re blowing my mind, Guillermo. Unfortunately, that observation does nothing to help save anyone from the clutches of torturers and killers. Unless you actually have answers for how to deal with that sort of problem, please stick to making crappy horror movies like Mimic and Hellboy.

Comments

[Chris]

Thank you sir. I saw this movie with a big group of people and was the only one who thought it was asinine. The internet hasn't helped. I'm confounded at how many people adore this "film."

[Carlos]

I haven't seen the movie, but regarding the first point, my understanding is that, while the Civil War ended in 1939, some small groups of Republicans remained hidden (usually in forests or mountains), carrying out small operations, for a few years. Although they had few hopes militarily, the idea that the end of WWII might cause the fall of Franco (an "ally" of Hitler, after all), may have been a reason to keep on fighting.

[lorri]

If you haven't already seen it, I would highly recommend Ali Selim's "Sweet Land" as an antidote to del Toro's poison. Sweet indeed, and not one gratuitous murder.

[Kingdaddy]

Sure, most guerrilla movements never get 100$ wiped out. (That's an important expectation that needs to get set in any counterinsurgency war, BTW.) However, why would you set the movie then, not earlier? There didn't seem to be any particular point.