Pan's Labyrinth

We rented it because of all the comercials saying how great a fantasy it was.

It was not a fantasy. It had fantasy in it, but it was a movie about war.

There were parts that were beautiful and sweet, but most of it was horiffic and burtal. It's hard for me to watch violence, there were a lot of time I had to cover my eyes. It was a very honest movie.

It didn't make war glamorous or romantic. Even the heroine was terrified.

I've been thinking about war a lot lately. Usually I keep my ideas fairly quiet so as not to offend people. I don't want it to come across as a lack of respect or appriciation for all the soldiers willing to fight for something they believe in. That's not it at all, I have admiration for anyone willing to stand up for what's right. The world would be a much better place if more were willing to do that.

My problem is with the way war is presented. I know it's unrealistic to think this world will ever be without war - there are too many selfish and cruel people for that to happen. Instead I take this stance:

It may be necessary temporarily to accept a lesser evil, but one must never label a necessary evil as good. - Margaret Mead

Pan's Labyrinth deals is set during the second world war, in 1944, Spain. There is a leader, there are rebels. Without knowing the context, one would be tempted, at the beginning of the movie at least, to sympathize with the leader.

It made me wonder, at the beginning of the war, how many people, individuals andleaders, took it for granted, maybe even saw it as good. It's so easy looking at things from this side to say how horrible it was, to class it as one of the worst things in human history (tho there are things just as bad, even worse, with more deaths, and closer to where we are if people would care to look....). Look how long it took others to get involved, how long people just stood back and watched things happen.

And it makes me wonder if 60 years from now people will be looking back at current times with the same mentality. There are horible, sadistic, evil things happening in the world that most people don't even know about. Either they don't care to know, or they're afraid if they know they would do something about it. We've been so brainwashed in our society, so secure. Most fear we feel in North America is fear of our own making, fear forced on us by our media and our leaders. In anyone's lifetime there have been a total of 2 attacks from outside. Asside from killing ourselves (school shootings, bombings, gang wars etc.), we're pretty well protected. In other parts of the world not a day goes by without people afraid of what will happen, without seeing soldiers walk down the street, without having to hide their ideas and oppinions and thoughts for fear of being mistaken as a "terrorist".

who is really causing the terror?

I'm saddened and I'm hurt. And I'm angry. I'm angry at the misinformation, at the skewed numbers, at the lack of coverage of other atrocities that people think are history (Like most things happening in africa, like the starvation and treatment of widows/orphans in India, the deaths of Christians globally, the continued sepritism and conflict in Europe).

I wanted to turn off the movie. I wanted to not think about it. But I couldn't. I couldn't let myself to forget, to not think about how evil this world can be. I don't want to be one of the masses that doesn't know, and therefor doesn't care.

I reccomend the movie, but be warned, it might make you think.