By David D'Arcy

"It's completely pagan."

The setting says something crucial about Guillermo Del Toro. There's plenty of fantasy in his films, but that's far from all there is. You don't use the aftermath of the 1936-39 Spanish Civil War as a backdrop (in this film or in Devil's Backbone, set at the war's outbreak) if you're churning out escapism, unless you happen to be a diehard fascist or a diehard communist who sees ideological purity in this battle between good and evil. It's probably safe to say that this director is neither.

In Pan's Labyrinth, the war still hasn't ended in 1944 - a key date, given that the most important turn against Hitler in Western Europe came in that year. Republican anti-fascist partisans are fighting an insurgency (God forbid) against an army unit that has taken over a farmhouse in the hills that are supposed to be in the forests of Navarra in the North. This triumphant Spanish army would be in power until 1975 - the longest-ruling fascist regime of the 20th century. Not a badge of honor.

The soldiers who have slaughtered most of their opposition have also taken prisoners, in this case the wife and child of one of their victims. (They are not precisely prisoners, but seem to have been carried away as spoils of war, evoking images of the Roman victories of two thousand years earlier. No coincidence - Spain is full of Roman ruins.) The wife (Ariadna Gil), widow of a tailor, is carrying the child of the sadistic Captain Vidal who is in command of the army unit. Her daughter, Ofelia (Ivana Baquero), already fears and loathes the man whom she's told to call her father. She'll find much more to despise as she sees more of the man at work.

Few of the characters will survive Del Toro's tale of good battling evil. The spiritual world, populated by sprites, a faun (Doug Jones) and other creatures, is a refuge for the young Ofelia. This is the labyrinth, after all. (It's odd that Del Toro hasn't thrown a priest into the mix, since the Church aligned itself with the fascists and Catholicism held a stranglehold on the official spiritual life of Spain for so long.)

Besides being a fairy tale, this is a war movie, and a violent one, and you can look at it as an ode to an insurgency. (In Iraq, we've moved from insurgency to civil war; here we move from civil war to insurgency.) Everyone - mother, daughter, doctor, maid and cook - is conspiring against the army of occupation, which will be the government for 30 years to come. The vain phallocratic Captain (Sergi Lopez) galvanizes the household in opposition.

Three great Criterion titles highlight this week's releases, which also include the dark, lyrical allegory - a children's story not for children - Pan's Labyrinth, the highly regarded and underseen The Dead Girl, an underrated Western, and several other works worth a look on DVD. Read on for more titles new and coming soon!

Continue Reading New on DVD: May 15, 2007

By Jonathan Marlow

On the occasion of the U.S. Premiere of Les Blank.s latest documentary, All in This Tea, at the San Francisco International Film Festival, Jonathan Marlow spoke with the remarkably accomplished filmmaker about his legendary career. What follows is the second of two parts, the first part can be found here.

Continue Reading Les Blank: Another Cup

"There may be no young actress today better at embodying a blend of wounded innocence and stoic pride than Sarah Polley," raved the Los Angeles Times. "In Secret Life of Words, she has a part worthy of her gifts." 

Adds the New York Times: "The exquisitely coordinated performances elicit an empathy as powerful as anything I can remember feeling in a recent film." Tim Robbins is also in fine form here. The underservedly obscure film arrives on DVD today.

Continue Reading The Secret Life of Words

A cornucopia of fine titles arrive today - many of them unheralded, underseen. Linda, Linda, Linda (reviewed here) and Music and Lyrics are in the more fun category; The Painted Veil is beautiful and romantic; Deliver Us From Evil and 838 Ways to Kill Castro mine darker territory; Comedy of Power is Chabrol being Chabrol; Things To Do (reviewed here) is a quirky little indie; Fur is... we're not sure what Fur is. Maybe you'll tell us.

Click on for more.

Continue Reading New on DVD: May 8, 2007

By Jonathan Marlow

"Mysterious Object at Noon, the title of his first feature, applies to his entire project," J. Hoberman once wrote of Apichatpong Weerasethakul. Jonathan Marlow talks to the Thai director whose work is mysteriously intriguing enough to be awarded the Special Jury Prize at Cannes.

Weerasethakul's newest DVD release Blissfully Yours, can be found here.

Continue Reading Blissfully Ours: A Talk With Apichatpong Weerasethakul

By Michael Fox

"The murderously genteel Claude Chabrol has been compared to Alfred Hitchcock by so many critics, capsule biographers, trailer producers and pressbook writers that the label "France's master of suspense" is forever stuck to his lapel. The seed was planted back in the '50s when Chabrol co-authored an early book on the then-undervalued British filmmaker with fellow Cahiers du Cinema critic (and soon-to-be fellow Nouvelle Vague instigator) Eric Rohmer."

Two of Claude Chabrol's films starring Isabelle Huppert are now available on DVD; The Comedy of Power (2006), and Violette (1978). Read on as Michael Fox shares an overview of some of the director's most memorable works.

Continue Reading Chabrol's Quietly Savage War on Complacency

By Shannon Gee

Shannon Gee was able to catch the premiere of Guy Maddin.s Brand Upon the Brain! at the 2006 Toronto International Film Festival. It was the very first screening of the film with all the elements in place: The live Narrator, there played by Louis Negin, the live score by members of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, vocals performed by a .castrato found in the steam baths of Winnipeg. and three Foley artists to provide the silent film.s sound effects.

Brand Upon the Brain! will be screening at the San Francisco International Film Festival -- click here for ticket info.

Continue Reading Maddin on the Brain

By Cathleen Rountree

The Pervert's Guide to Cinema, directed by Sophie Fiennes (sister to Ralph and Joseph), was a popular draw at the Toronto International Film Festival last fall. A blueprint for approaching cinema through a psychoanalytic lens, the three-part series consists of substantial film clips and tongue-in-cheek, meticulously recreated settings of famous films (Melanie under siege on Bodega Bay in The Birds; a cadaverous Mrs. Bates in the basement of Psycho; a lunatic Frank on the couch in the unquestionably "perverted" Blue Velvet).

The Pervert's Guide to Cinema is currently working the festival circuit -- You can search dates and locations here.

For those of you in the San Francisco Bay area, the film will be screening at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts May 3rd - May 6th. For times and ticket info click here.

Continue Reading Sophie Fiennes and The Pervert's Guide to Cinema

By Sean Axmaker

There's an introduction that puts an unexpected burden on an interview. "I promised myself that by Christmas I could stop," explains Kelly Reichardt at the beginning of our phone interview, conducted back in December. She laughs and continues: "I ran out of things to say about the film a long time ago. But woo-hoo, here we go."

Old Joy--a GreenCine Best of 2006 title--is now available on DVD.

Continue Reading Kelly Reichardt's New "Joy"