this and that

Had a lovely evening yesterday visiting a friend who has recently returned from a trip to Cuba. There were photos and stories and yummy rummy drinks in abundance.:) Then, while I was lounging around, trying to recover from the drinks before the drive back home, my friend put on a movie. Pan's Labyrinth. It is not available on DVD yet, but she managed to download it from somewhere. I don't think I had even heard about it, let alone knew what to expect - but I was hooked from the first minutes and sat through the whole thing with my mouth hanging open in amazement, not caring that it was past midnight already and that I was most likely earning myself another lack-of-sleep headache.

The movie is astounding. It is a flawlessly crafted work of art. So beautifully shot... so poignantly tragic. It combines fantasy and harsh historical realism in a way I have never seen before. It is disturbingly dark, with no "artificial sweeteners" or incongruously "glued on" happy ending - which is precisely what I found so stunning and refreshing about it. It shows, in a deeply symbolic way, how the cruel world poisons childhood dreams. There is strong violent content, and I will admit right away that I didn't protest when my friend hit fast-forward during the most disturbing scenes; but the heartbreaking sadness of it all is so pure and elevated somehow that the strongest impression the film leaves with the viewer is that of beauty. And the CGI sequences are a masterpiece of dark, ominous art in themselves; in fact, they reminded me strongly of Zdzislaw Beksinski, whose paintings I greatly admire, but would never dare hang over my bed, for fear of what dreams may come...

( But coming back to the more mundane plane of existence... )