children of the faun/the labyrinth of men
I’ve recently seen The Labyrinth of the Faun and Children of Men and I’ve decided they’re fraternal twins. They both put some fragile innocence into nightmarish and horrifically violent situations, and the story follows the protector of the innocence, who possesses some essential purity. They’re also both gorgeous movies and really really hard to watch. At the end of each the most articulate reaction I could manage was something like “holy crap that was effing hard core!”
So it’s kind of ridiculous but I’ve put together a little chart comparing the two. Spoilers follow the break.
| Â | Labyrinth of the Faun | Children of Men |
| protagonist/protector/purity | Ofelia, a young girl | Theo, an adult male |
| the innocence | unborn/infant male | unborn/infant female |
| the child’s natural protector | has lost faith, cannot see her predicament (then dies) | cannot physically make the trip alone |
| child’s name | stripped of name at the end | undecided/fluid |
| the nightmare | fascist regime/repressive order following a civil war | anarchy/lack of order in a police state |
| corrupting threat | the dictator (Captain Vidal) | the rebellion (the Fishes) |
| the sacrifice | Ofelia’s life | Theo’s life |
| the ambiguous escape | is the fantasy real? (does Ofelia die?) | is the Human Project real? (also, does Theo die?) |
| time setting | recent past | near future |
So I don’t know if there’s some larger point to be made here. I’ll think about it some more.
Offhand, I also haven’t puzzled out what’s up with the mouth slash in Labyrinth. Del Toro forces it on us unrelentingly. After the stitching scene I could hardly think of anything else for the rest of the movie. I can’t believe it’s just for its shock value.
January 29th, 2007 at 7:12 pm
Well, I had to avert my eyes because I haven’t yet seen Children of Men. It’s tops on my list right now. I’ll come back when I’ve seen it.
February 4th, 2007 at 8:45 am
Here’s what Del Toro says about the scene where Mercedes slashed Vidal’s mouth: “They do it in many cultures and in Britain this is called the ‘Chelsea smile.’ If you’re a traitor, they do the Chelsea smile to you in. What I wanted … both in Devil’s Backbone and in this on there is a moment where the character … I’m very interested in the proto-fascist to look really sleek. This guy [has] shiny boots, beautiful hair, [is] incredibly welel-spoken; he’s a gentleman, right? He can bash and kill and all that but when his wife leaves the room, he gets up from the chair. I was interested in him starting to look on the outside the way he looks on the inside and the same was true in Devil’s Backbone. So I did the half-Chelsea on him because I wanted to prove several things. I needed that shot where he’s sewing himself because it’s a character moment. That shows you what type of guy this guy is. He shines his own boots. He fixes his own watch. And he sews himself up. This man is unstoppable. He’s not going to stop. He’s going to keep going. And then I want him to drink the drink, hurt, and what does he do? He pours another one! It’s defining the character. It’s a moment that’s larger than life that turns him into the Big Bad Wolf. The fairy tales needs Little Red Riding Hood and it does need the Big Bad Wolf. That was not Takashi Miike; that was the half-Chelsea smile.”
http://www.twitchfilm.net/archives/008508.html
April 2nd, 2007 at 3:39 am
I finally saw ‘Children of Men’ last night. Yeah, really effing hard core.
I liked it a lot. I wouldn’t have made the connection between the two had you not mentioned it, but looking at your chart, it makes a lot of sense.
I kinda got hung up on the title, ‘Children of Men.’ I was wondering if it had less to do with the idea of the lack of children being born, and more to do with where the world might go if we continue to be ruled by male aggressive interests more than female nurturing interests. I saw the whole baby thing as a metaphor more than a plot device. Are we on a path of destruction in our current geopolitical system because we’re “of men” more than “of women”? I think the hope is that the male protagonist realizes this through the course of the movie.
But I don’t know… I could be reading too much into it, as I tend to do sometimes.