Pan's Labyrinth Response Paper

Pan’s Labyrinth

Pan’s Labyrinth is a story about girl dealing with her beliefs in fairy tales and what she should believe about the real world. In this film she struggles with her mother being sick, a horrible step-father, and a magical faun giving her tasks to see if she is a princess of another fantasy world. Before watching the movie we saw a short documentary from the director of the film, Guillermo del Toro, and he explained the common cases of “threes” that he interacted into the movie. There were three fairies that visited Ofelia, she had a choice between three doors to unlock, and she had three tasks to complete before the moon was full. I think that the reoccurrence of threes in literary in the text. Ofelia’s character in the movie certainly acts in a believable manor. She is young girl who is curious about her surroundings. She gets thrown into a new home and a new father comes into her life that could care less about her. There were times that I was kind of shocked about how calm she was and trusting she was around the creatures. I would have been freaked out. This movie takes place just after the Spanish Civil War in the 1940s and throughout the film the Spanish Maquis guerillas are being rooted out by Ofelia’s step-father, the Captain Vidal. Ofelia and her mother just moved out to the post in the mountains of Northwestern Spain. I think some of the forces affecting the narrative world in this story are a change in atmosphere for the both of them and Ofelia’s adventurous and rebellious side. I think that when Ofelia is on her second task and she eats some grapes off of the table, when she is strictly told not to, really drives the dramatic energy. Because she breaks the rules the faun tells her that she will never be able to return to the other realm. After this happened it left you wondering how the story was going to end. I think that Pan’s Labyrinth made a lot of political statements because it was set in post-Civil War Spain and you saw how the doctor and Mercedes were helping the Maquis guerillas while working for the Captain. That just shows you how loyal people really were the person firmly in power. You can tie this story together with a lot of other fairy tales. Guillermo del Toro explained how he used influences from Alice in Wonderland. So I think that other fairy tales like Alice in Wonderland and The Wizard of Oz can be associated with this because the storyline involves a girl trying to find her way home while overcoming obstacles that are thrown her way whether they are real or fantasy. I would definitely give this text a thumbs up! I feel that the story was very well thought out and I really enjoyed watching the short documentary beforehand to give us a more in depth perspective of how Guillermo del Toro came up with the ideas behind Pan’s Labyrinth.

Persepolis Response Paper

Persepolis

In this film, set in the 1970s in Iran, the people are rebelling against the Shah (Iranian government). I feel like the characters are behaving in believable ways because they feel that the government isn’t doing what it is supposed to be. The main character, Marjane Satrapi, rebels by wearing “punk rock” clothes and shoes and listening to rock music that she buys off the streets from men in black coats. The people of Tehran would have parties and then have to pour out all the alcohol and hide guests of the opposite sex if officers invaded their homes to see if they were up to no good. They just wanted to be free of the tyrannical government. The Shah is the force that if affecting Marjane and her family’s world in the text. In one scene in this film a young boy was shot and killed during a gathering which I am assuming was a protest. Marjane’s parents witnessed this young boy being killed and it really affected her mother. Her parents always talked about how it used to be and how they used to be able to hold hands in public but now women had to wear scarves and hid themselves. I think when Uncle Anoush comes into the picture and tells Marjane all about his life story is one of the greatest shifts. Shortly after he comes into her life he is taken away to prison and is killed. Marjane’s world is turned around because he has such an impact on her life in a short amount of time. I think this film made a lot of political statements throughout her story. One of them being the people could overthrow their government because they weren’t happy with it. Or how about that when she comes back to Tehran, after being away for eight years, the situation “seems worse” to her father because the people don’t even remember why they had a war in the first place. I didn’t know this before I saw this film that it was also a graphic novel by Marjane Satrapi. She was very brave to write about how her life got turned upside down. I wish that the story would have let us know more about what happened to Marjane after she left for the second time, and if she found love again. What kinds of things did she do after she gets to France? And what about her parents, how are things with them? I kind of felt like the movie ended really fast and could have closed up some ends for us. I still really enjoyed Persepolis. I didn’t think that I would be able to pay attention because it was in French and I had to read the subtitles but it made the movie so much better in my opinion. And I also feel that the title is fitting because Persepolis was the ceremonial capital of the Persian Empire. I was really interested and glad to see that at the end of the film when she is asked where she is from that she replies “Iran” because she was kind of ashamed of her heritage throughout her time in Vienna.