Gentle Gian's PAN'S LABYRINTH Busts

It has been several years in the making, but Gentle Giant is close to releasing their PAN'S LABYRINTH busts. You can check them out this year at SDCC - but if you can't wait (or won't be there) here are some pictures and details:

Faun Mini Bust
Price: $70.00
Limited Edition of 500
Designed in 1:6 scale
https://www.gentlegiantltd.com/catalog/product/detail/615



Pale Man Mini Bust
Price: $70.00
Limited Edition of 500
Designed in 1:6 scale
https://www.gentlegiantltd.com/catalog/product/detail/614


Guillermo Del Toro and Doug Jones will be signing at the Gentle Giant boot at SDCC 2010. Check schedule for times!

PAN'S LABYRINTH one of the best of the decade

As 2009 comes to a close, I've noticed that PAN'S LABYRINTH has popped up on a few "Best Films of the Decade" lists.

In fact, Metacritic.com just named PAN'S LABYRINTH the overall top movie of the decade based on a score of theatrical reviews.

It also got a shout out in the NJ Star-Ledger. Metronews Canada called it "one of the decade's most amazing movies."

The best quote comes from Lucy Jones of the Telegraph, who said "I walked out of Pan's Labyrinth feeling like a piece of gum on a frozen pavement. Spat out by a serial killer." She ranks the scene with Ofelia in the Pale Man's lair as the #9 Scene of the Decade.

It is great to see that the film is sticking with people. This is evidence that it will remain as an all-time classic.

Gentle Giant to produce PAN'S LABYRINTH Figures

You may recall that back in August 2007, we reported that NECA would be producing some PAN'S LABYRINTH figures. Since then, Gentle Giant has picked up the license and I am happy to say that we will finally be seeing a PALE MAN statuette in the fall of 2009. Check out this preview trailer below!






Also, here is a prototype for a Faun statuette that was on display at the 2008 San Diego Comic Con. Could we see this in 2009 as well?

Biting a Baby in Half

Our friends at TORN have provided us with a transcript of a chat with Anthony Moody, who recently had an extended interview with GDT. Moody mentions this fascinating story about Ofelia's encounter with the Pale Man:

By the way [GDT] also mentioned something really interesting which is when she goes into to see (and I forget the characters name) – the Monster with the eyes on his palm... [Sohaib: “Oh, the Pale Man]... Right! When she goes in to his lair and she takes the grape, he’d [Guillermo] originally wanted her to eat half the grape and then pull it back and show the other half of the grape in her hand and reveal that she had bitten a baby in half inside the grape.

So what do you think of this visual? For one, I regret that he wasn't able to put this visual in the film, be it budget constraints or simple choice. This is such an indelible image and something that I believe fits perfectly into how Pan's Labyrinth works as a film. 1) Guillermo wanted the film to convey a certain "uneasiness", especially in regards to the violence. This was his way to "put-off" viewers as to the violonce of the civil war. There was nothing glamorous about the deaths in this film. This image I think would inspire that same uneasiness. It would stay with you. 2) There is foreshadowing here, for sure - Ofelia's destiny is entwined with the fate of her little brother. Her choice to eat the grape against the rules, to rebel, signifies the power that she holds. But is the baby her brother? I don't think so. I see it more as a forecast for her own death.

What do you think?

GDT On Fairy Tales, Part 4

The last in my series of GDT quotes on the topic of fairy tales:



Interview by Elvis Mitchell

EM: We've talked about this before, but one of the things that used to make movies terrifying--all those B pictures we grew up on, the fantastical stories we've talked about, even Grimm's fairy tales, is that--
GT: Children die.


EM: Absolutely.
GT: That aspect of things is mostly sanitized from even the news now. When you'd see footage of a war in the '70s, you would get the occasional retina-burning image of a family running away, being doused with napalm, or a little girl screaming. To me, that's war. It's not soldiers in uniforms looking cool or great night footage of rockets flying. War is when it hits your child or your mother or your grandmother. When you read any of the great fairy tales, be it Oscar Wilde or Hans Christian Andersen, or be it in the oral tradition, they all have a very strong element of pathos.


EM: Which is something that you have in Pan's Labyrinth. In fairy tales we're used to the possibility of wrongs being righted. But that doesn't necessarily happen In this movie.
GT: Because the little girl might have the moment that is an exact quote of the little matchbook girl in Hans Christian Andersen, where she lights the last match and she is finally in a happy place, and she smiles, and then she dies.


EM: But what you get In American movies Is that kids represent innocence, and you can't kill off innocence. So there's a belief that's sort of contrary to what you're saying--that basically evil can consume everybody.
GT: Evil has the characteristic of being resilient. It's harder to work toward what's right, the common good. It's easier to be selfish.


EM: So you're saying that evil is easier because it's an easy way out.
GT: It's the easiest way out. It is the straight path, the shining path, the most tempting path. The rewards of modesty or goodness or kindness are far more subtle.


EM: But those rewards that you're talking about--the ones that come with sacrifices and compromises--are about being an adult.
GT: That's why I think the best way to address these little truths is in fables. This conversation is taking place, and we may be nodding or not, but the reality is that fables get at what we're talking about so much more efficiently.


EM: Do you think you could make a movie like Pan's Labyrinth in America?
GT: No. Never. Impossible. Because the biggest stigma of genre or fantasy movies is that they are supposed to be watered down. The studio's mentality is like, "How do we make this fully accessible?" If we had tested the movie with an audience, the ending would be completely different.


EM: If Bambi [1942] were made today, his mother wouldn't die.
GT: No. But Walt Disney, the original man, anti-Semite or not, the guy understood the value of pathos. Fantasia [1940], Pinocchio [1940], Alice in Wonderland [1951]--they're all full of darkness.


EM: Do you feel now like you've had a chance to expunge some of the darker fairy tales that you wanted to get out of your system?
GT: I would like to continue. You know, Hellboy II is also a bit of an exploration of the fairy world. It's a funny thing: I have an impediment that most certainly makes me the least accurate judge of what it is, but to me, Hellboy is the sort of film I've done that I group with The Devil's Backbone and Cronos and Pan's Labyrinth. I don't group it with Blade II [2002] or Mimic. I think of Hellboy as a personal movie, strangely enough. I can defend Blade II and say that I love it, but it's not as personal a movie in the way that Hellboy is for me. Hellboy II is even more personal to me than Hellboy. I really have a grand plan for taking him all the way to the fulfillment of his destiny.


EM: And you're not a guy who tends to be drawn toward happy endings.
GT: Not really. There was a great phrase that I love in a screenplay written about a decade ago where a demon says to a guy, "Lost causes are more beautiful." I really believe that.

GDT On Fairy Tales, Part 3

More quotes from Guillermo on the topic of fairy tales:



From Atomic Chat:



The reality of that is cemented deeply into the most traditional fairytales that used to come out of the most harrowing of environments. People tend to forget that Hansel and Gretel came out of one of the biggest famines in Europe. Fairytales come from times of plague, famine, war. And we’re also seeing brutal moments of mutilation, cannibalism, infanticide, murder, you know, but fantasised. It is make believe, but the horror deal comes as a direct descendant of the fairy tale.







From Combustible Celluloid:



(On fairy tale themes of PAN'S LABYRINTH)

"There is such a huge tradition in fairy tales of the pre-pubescent heroine going through the tasks and the rite of passage," he says. "There are even books written about it by feminists and studious people who analyze fairy tales. The most powerful example is a tale by Hans Christian Andersen called "The Snow Queen," where the girl has to go through an ordeal that is ambiguous and scary and vaguely disturbing to rescue the boy she loves. You can have all the other films and stories added to that pile, and it's really a tradition."







From HighBeam Encyclopedia:



EM: Where did the idea for Pan's Labyrinth come from?

When I first thought of the idea, I was reading a book called The Science of Fairy Tales. I started making notes about the essential images and symbols in fairy tales: the key, the dagger, blood spilled, the choice, the three doors, the moon, the mother, the rose, the toad, the root, the underground, the mandrake, the unborn baby as a token for passage. So I distilled these elements and took them into another context, which was fascist Spain in 1944.

GDT On Fairy Tales, Part 2

From The Evening Class Blog Q & A:



I love monsters and I think fantasy is the last refuge of spirituality in this time because we have essentially [gone] through the '50s and '60s and '70s, and all the iconoclastic taking down of rightfully—disgusting institutions; but, anything that was erected after that essentially was or has become as hollow as those institutions. So we took down all the crap and we erected new crap. [Laughter.] We erected every boring, materialistic sort-of-reality t.v. shit to drive us on. I believe that in this age one of the few moments where I can feel like a child and can feel spiritually uplifted is through fantasy. I really believe in monsters in the way that a Baptist would receive Jesus. …Monsters were invented by primitive man to explain—first of all—nature. Then as they became socially more complex they started inventing monsters to talk about the things that scared them about themselves and eventually it's psychological. Monsters have a direct tap into spirituality and consciousness. I feel that I have an intimate, almost religious, contact with fantasy creatures."



"The origin of the fairy tale," Del Toro answered, "is an oral tradition. Normally what would happen is cobblers and tailors traveling from town to town would stay at homes and charge a warm bed and a meal and then the whole family would sit around the cobbler or the tailor and they would tell a story, many times about a cobbler and a tailor in a fairy tale. That's why they figure so prominently in fairy tales. They had to entertain the whole family, children and adults, so they talked about contexts that felt alive and contemporary at that time. They talked about famine. They talked about war, pestilence, and they peppered [the stories] with incredibly brutal moments either to entertain the adults or to scare the children shitless [laughter] and into behaving. So there [are] two kinds of fantastic tales: one is extremely repressive, pro-establishment, and tells the children don't go out at night, obey your parents, don't be ambitious, and this kind of thing; and then there is the other one, which is absolutely insane and brutal. But all of them were peppered with really dark, incredibly almost Freudian, elements. I felt that they had been [whitewashed] and sweetened and taken beyond recognition into being Disneyfied, if you would. I wanted to recuperate the brutality because I believe that without a context of horror then the magic is meaningless. If all you're going to have is little elves singing happily all the fucking time. The fact is my fantasy has always been absolutely non-liberating. It has helped me deal with the real world but I never imagined myself singing to little bluebirds or chipmunks or stuff like that. The way I see fantasy is not a way to escape reality but to articulate reality. To use those elements to learn your way around the world and I believe that fantasy is a way to create parable, to talk about big truths but in a way not married to outcome, or married to a political outcome, an immediate outcome. Darkness is necessary in those cases to bring forth … this movie, if it worked with you—because a movie, I keep saying, is like a blind date, y'know?—if it worked with you, if it tickled you in the right places, then the movie hopefully transported you to a vulnerable place where you can be a kid again. Now we, as adults, in order to be shocked by the horror like a kid and experience the wonderful like a kid, I have to push your buttons and they're hidden under layers and layers of social fat. I have to push really hard like deep tissue massage."

GDT On Fairy Tales, Part 1

First - thanks to Kate on the message boards for getting me thinking about this topic. GDT is a huge fan of fairy tales and I find it interesting to read about how they have influenced his films. I thought I would post some quotes for your enjoyment.

From Devil's Backbone Interview at FreakCentral.:

You mention fairytales in regards to Blade II, and I have noted that the fairytale style is a cornerstone for your films.
It's funny you say that because in every movie I make I consciously try to insert fairy tale elements. I try very hard. I'm a huge fan of a particular group of Victorian illustrators that specialized in illustrating fairy tales. Kay Nielson, who illustrated some beautiful children's books, Arthur Rakham (right)--very beautiful sepia work, and I try to incorporate elements of those images in all of my work. Into Devil's Backbone went that oversized oven in the kitchen and the big oversized scissors hanging on the rack. I have this feeling, and I know in my gut that it's right, that horror stories are nothing but the stepchildren of fairytales. They're a derivation of that and the imagery tends to lend itself very nicely to that.

In that they teach morality through cautionary examples?
Quite the opposite: I believe they talk about a far more subversive morality than that in fairytales. I believe that fairytales are an instrument of instruction and that horror tales are the illegitimate offspring of that. The best horror tales to me are those that have an anarchic point of view--the ones that have no preconceived notions of what should be. At the same time I think that horror is without a doubt a beautiful instrument and an expansive container for metaphors.



From Pan's Labyrinth Interview:

“In the time of spiritual formation, for me, both fairy tales and the Bible had the exact same weight. I was as enthralled by a parable in the Bible about the grain of mustard, as I could be about three brothers on their quest to marry a princess. I found equal spiritual illumination in both. Even when I was a kid, funny enough, I used to be able to find those fairy tales that felt preachy and pro-establishment, and I hated them. I hated the ones that were about, ‘Don’t go out at night.’ There are fairy tales that are created to instill fear in children, and there are fairy tales that are created to instill hope and magic in children. I like those. I like the anarchic ones. I like the crazy ones. And, I think that all of them have a huge quotient of darkness because the one thing that alchemy understands, and fairy tale lore understands, is that you need the vile matter for magic to flourish. You need lead to turn it into gold. You need the two things for the process. So when people sanitize fairy tales and homogenize them, they become completely uninteresting for me.”