The Five Obstructions

The Five Obstructions, by Lars Von Trier and Jorgen Leth, is a documentary that incorporates sections of films. The premise is that Trier has created a challenge for Leth. Leth has to remake, The Perfect Human, five times with different stipulations and rules for each separate recreation. These obstructions included: filming in Cuba, the worst place in the world, filming Brussels and a cartoon remake.

I thought that an interesting perspective about this movie was documenting the filmmaker at work. The audience is given a first hand account of the creative film thinking process. The obstructions that are given as well show the development of the creative process that any director must go through when making a movie.

The most interesting aspects about this movie I thought were the subtle underlying messages. The Perfect Human, I believe is a satire on mainstream Hollywood films. I believe that this movie criticizes that there is a formula to create “cookie-cutter” type of movies. These mass-produced movies take away meaning and excitement from cinema in general. The Five Obstructions wants to convey that by remaking a movie multiple times in different settings with different “obstructions” still in the end it is the same movie. A lot of Hollywood’s mass produced movies contain similar plot lines, but different settings, actors, ext. In the end, The Five Obstructions proves that these movies are just the same.   

Pan's Labyrinth

Pan's Labyrinth is a masterpiece of work for Guillermo del Toro. The movie is his most personal and best work to date, with The Devil's Backbone close behind it. The story is executed brilliantly and has the very personal visual style of del Toro all over it; likely due to his filling of multiple journals with drawings and ideas of his for the movie. The fantastical story of Ofelia seems over the top and like a fairy tale but it works very well and handles the subject matter in a more mature way than other movies with similar subject matter. However the things I found most interesting in the movie were Doug Jones' characters, the pale man and the faun, as well as the captain character. Doug Jones did a stunning job in selling his nuanced and very physical performances of the faun and the pale man. Jones has a unique way of being able to manipulate his body and sell a performance with subtle movements, as well as having to learn lines  in Spanish and having his lines dubbed over. And the other thing that I found very interesting was the captain. The captain is portrayed as a very cold and harsh man but was fleshed out and given the interesting back story of his war hero father smashing his pocket watch in order for his son to know the time that his father died. This detail seems to be an important part in understanding his character. The watch and the legacy of his father always seems to haunt the captain. This seems to cause him to feel increasingly dissatisfied with himself and not living up to his father's legacy, he always seems desperate to do something big to measure up to his father's legacy. However, the best part of this legacy haunting the captain is when he tries to do the same thing for his own son, he is shut down and told his son will never even know his name and is shot in the face. Overall, I found Pan's Labyrinth to be a wonderful movie and even better after watching it for the third time.

Pan's Labyrinth

Pan’s Labyrinth, by Guillermo del Toro, is a movie about a young girl, Ofelia, who is moving with her mother to the Spanish countryside. Ofelia’s mother recently married Captain Vidal, an officer in the Spanish Civil War. The movie parallels Ofelia’s fairy tail, with a war story as well.

Ofelia’s fairy tale shows her destiny to save her brother and return to her mother and father. The fairy tale, however, has many twists and turns. Ofelia completes three tasks that all have biblical references. One of the main references is gluttony. Both times when Ofelia offers the rocks to the frog and decides to take grapes, adverse affects happen. The frog ends up dying and Ofelia narrowly escapes the Pale Man, while also putting her quest in jeopardy with the faun. The fruit also eludes to the forbidden fruit that Adam and Eve took from the garden. In the last task, when the brother is supposed to be offered up, it seemed similar to when God told Abraham to kill his son. All of these biblical references I think help humanize different characters and add to a theme of redemption. Although Ofelia’s sometimes jeopardizes her story in the war (fights with her mother and the Captain) and the fairy tale (taking the grapes) she is always given a second chance and forgiven in the end. Although she has to experience death to reach her happiest moments, her sacrifice redeems all of her mistakes.

An interesting scene in the film is when Ofelia is in the Pale Man’s layer. When she gets to the hole in the wall she dismisses one of the fairies and goes for the other lock. She finds the sword anyways and continues to go over and eat the fruit. I always thought it was peculiar that she did this. Maybe it was to show her humanization of over riding external advice, but it seems unresolved.

I really enjoyed this movie and thought that the animation along with real scenery from the country side of Spain added a special touch to the overall movie. The intertwined stories that eventually collide with each other creates suspense as well as surprise. In order to add a deeper level to this film I feel that the adult aspects were necessary to convey a strong meaning.