Pans Labyrint

so i watched this Spanish film in film studies (of course) exploring films that have been considered 'great' or just 'really good' either way it was nothing like i'd ever seen before despite your usual fantasy film, i had never seen anything quite like this before.

a summary of the film...
In 1944 fascist Spain, a girl, fascinated with fairy-tales, is sent along with her pregnant mother to live with her new stepfather, a ruthless captain of the Spanish army. During the night, she meets a fairy who takes her to an old faun in the center of the labyrinth. He tells her she's a princess, but must prove her royalty by surviving three gruesome tasks. If she fails, she will never prove herself to be the the true princess and will never see her real father, the king, again.

that's what it was about but while watching this film i had to watch with a question in mind, to see how women are presented within the film, beside the blood and gory which at times i felt was a little overwhelming that i actually had to check the rating just to make sure i wasn't watching a 18! cause it was indeed a 15 but jeez when i saw that simple farmer get his face smashed in by a bottle i felt like i was watching a horror movie not a fantasy film! 

here's my answer to the question before...

I felt women were presented both positively and negatively or in other words stereotypically throughout the film.

There are three major female characters in the film, all of different ages. The youngest is Ofelia, who’s the child heroine. Then Mercedes the young woman heroine, and lastly Ofelia’s mother, who’s pregnant.

Ofelia’s mother is pregnant and is travelling to meet her new husband, suffering through journey she is nauseated and vomiting, which she blames on her symptoms on the baby being too active. When they arrive at their destination, the Captain greets them and a wheelchair is waiting for Ofelia’s mother, she doesn't appreciate having said her legs work find, the Captain is having none of this and she is forced to use the wheelchair while pregnant, also while there she is asserted as “The Captain’s wife.” This shows the lack of power she has and therefore is portrayed as weak and fragile. While pregnant is only gets weaker and weaker as the pregnancy takes a lot out of her, and the Captain seems worried at first telling the doctor to do anything to help her, then further down the line when she doesn't seem to be improving he changes his tune saying to just save his unborn son.  This shows us how little they value her life and how she is she basically only a womb in which she is to only give life to a son.  Which makes me think back to days when women were only used for childbearing and was seen for no other purpose than that, I feel that Ofelia’s mother portrayed pregnant women as weak and fragile and undermined in a world full of men, in my eyes.

Mercedes is introduced the same time as Ofelia and her mother arrived, called upon by the Captain to collect their luggage, she is a young servant woman who seems to run the household.   I feel that when she was told to collect their luggage I felt that this was unfair since the luggage is probably heavy and why out of all the men that surrounded the vehicle why couldn't one of them help? Instead they leave the servant girl to do it. I felt that was degrading of women and even a little disrespectful, but yet again it showed status of who is on top and who isn't.  Yet it could also demonstrate inner strength? The fact that she doesn't complain and lifts the luggage despite their contents shows strength and power within this servant woman.

We see a lot of Mercedes throughout the film, when she’s attending to the Captain who seems to make suggestive moves to her, like touching her arm and such. Making her look like an object, yet she also holds the role of a leader running the household and making sure everything happens smoothly. Mercedes also is living a double life while pretending to be the faithful servant woman she also helping her brother who’s is seemed as the enemy to the Captain and is who they are fighting against.  Further down the line, she is caught and before she is caught we are shown a scene where she is preparing dinner and hides a knife under her skirt this then becomes an important detail, as to when she is then caught and tied up by the Captain she retrieves the knife and frees herself this shows power and strength yet again from Mercedes. She then threatens the Captain slashing across his cheek, when the realization of the fact that she had gotten away with it for so long was indeed because she was a woman and they saw nothing but a servant when looking at her. Showing the naive-ness of the men and the intelligence of Mercedes to get away with it for so long, showing women in a positive light, with empowering roles.

I feel that Pan’s Labyrinth presents women in both stereotypical and positive situations, exploring the roles of women back then and how even through harsh times time it is not always the soldiers that save the day, sometimes the heroine can be a little girl or a humble servant.  I enjoyed the film and even though I didn't like the way women were always presented, I liked the empowering role of the Mercedes and the strength within she demonstrated.  

overall i thought the film was really good and quite interesting despite the blood and gory and language i actually didn't mind reading subtitles having watched foreign films before i didn't phase me in the least, but the storyline was interesting and i give it  4stars! cause it really wasn't that bad.

as always here's a trailer...

Twilight Breaking Dawn Part 2

I've just watched breaking dawn part 2, let's just say it was mind-blowing to say the least. 

Bella is enjoying her new life and new powers, after the birth of their daughter, Renesmee. Soon, however, their family bliss is threatened again, by a new menace. Vampire Irina believes a child like Renesmee could challenge the power and existence of the Volturi. As Irina rallies the Volturi to destroy this potential threat, Bella and the Cullens - together with any allies they can assemble - are preparing to fight a crucial, ultimate battle, to protect their family.

I mean so much happened, whether you read the book or not.  The twist... oh my gosh, this twist will be soo unexpected that you'll forget to breathe. 

I mean  I saw this film with my friends two of which read the book, all the way through all I could hear was their muttering "what is going on... this didn't happen in the book! This can't be happening!"

Too be honest I thought Ashton Kutcher was about to appear on screen and say we'd all been punk'd cause man did it feel like it! 

All in all I thought the film was amazing and i really enjoyed it and wouldn't mind seeing it again (you know what i just might)  i give it 5stars!

now here's the trailer, if you haven't seen it already !

Citizen Kane

While recently watching the film Citizen Kane, rumored to be one of the best films of all time which in more ways than one it certainly could be...

Summary of the film...

A group of reporters who are trying to decipher the last word ever spoke by Charles Foster Kane, the millionaire newspaper tycoon: "Rosebud." The film begins with a news reel detailing Kane's life for the masses, and then from there, we are shown flashbacks from Kane's life. As the reporters investigate further, the viewers see a display of a fascinating man's rise to fame, and how he eventually fell off the "top of the world."

For the time this film was made, I was impressed by the cinematography used and how easily this film could be mistaken of being made in this time just by the way it was executed and perceived on screen, giving me the intense of feel of just awestruck and ground breaking this film must of been in its time when it appeared on the big screen.

The movie opens with an unforgettable image of a distant, fog-shrouded castle on a hill. It's a very gothic shot. Amazing me with such simple dissolve transitions, which make it, look eerie and ghost like even.

Within moments of the film's eerie, visually-stunning opening, Kane is dead, uttering the word "Rosebud" as he hunches over. His death, like his life, is a big news event, and the paper he owned, the New York Inquirer, is desperate to unearth the meaning of his cryptic last word. Is it a woman he bedded? A horse he bet on? A beloved pet? Some long-lost, unrequited love? The truth, which isn't revealed until the closing scene, represents one of the all-time greatest motion picture ironies, and leads us to believe that, on some level, Kane regretted not having led a simple, quiet life.

After showing Kane's death, Citizen Kane presents a ten-minute "newsreel" that details the man's accomplishments.

Then, as a reporter (William Alland) from the Inquirer digs into Kane's past to learn the meaning of Rosebud, Kane’s history is unravelled through a series of extended flashbacks that represent the sometimes-overlapping, non- chronological accounts of five eyewitnesses. All unreliable, since it’s from other their perspective not Kane’s and since Kane is dead we never get the real story only what they remember.  The people interviewed were...

   His closest friend, Jedediah Leland

    Employee, Mr. Bernstein 

   Affair, second wife, Susan Alexander

    Butler, Raymond

The use of cinematography throughout the film, with minor setbacks such as flashbacks,  a technique used quite a bit that was introduced through this movie was ‘deep focus’ which has everything in the frame even the background, in focus at the same time, as opposed to having only the people and things in the foreground in focus.  

Example of a screen that does this is when Kane’s mother gives him up, giving us the audience a clear view of the place Kane came from, and how he had no control over the matter, another example of deep focus is the scene where Kane breaks into Susan Alexander’s room after her suicide attempt. In the background, Kane and another man break into the room, with at the same time the medicine bottle and a glass with a spoon in it are in the ‘close-up’ (another technique) in the foreground. 

Then the background was lit, the foreground darkened. I liked the effect made by deep focus and the way it played on my emotions as it conveyed the scene using nothing but the effect to get the point of what just happened across.

Another technique used was ‘wipe’ where one image is “wiped” off the screen by another; I felt this was very effective in the way it transformed into another scene.  Alongside this there was use of ‘low-angle shots’ used to display a point of view facing upwards, allowing the ceilings to be shown in the background, something that wasn't done in Hollywood. This technique is used effectively in the scene where Kane meets Leland after his election loss.

My only real negative point this film was the amount of flashbacks produced and the drawn out question of ‘what or who is Rosebud?’ and with each flashback there was no correlation to what Rosebud was, dragging it on and on with no real answers to only have the flashbacks end with none of the interviewees knowing what Rosebud was. So I felt that was disheartening and quite drawn out, leaving me throughout the film with the words “another one...” spinning round and round.

As a film, Citizen Kane is a powerful dramatic tale about the uses and abuses of wealth and power. It's a classic American tragedy about a man of great passion, vision, and greed, who pushes himself until he brings ruins to himself and all around him. Of course, the production aspect that makes Citizen Kane so memorable is Greg Toland's landmark cinematography.

The movie is a visual masterpiece, made of daring angles and breathtaking images that had never been attempted before this film. Toland perfected a deep-focus technique that allowed him to photograph backgrounds with as much clarity as foregrounds (note the scene where Kane's parents discuss his future while, as seen through the window, the child plays outside in the snow). There's also an extremely effective low-angle shot late in the film where Kane trashes Susan's room.

There's no doubt that Citizen Kane was far ahead of its time. Yet, out of the conflict, Citizen Kane emerged stronger than ever.

Is Citizen Kane the best movie ever made? Many critics would argue "yes" without pause, but my enthusiasm is more restrained. While I acknowledge that Kane is a seminal masterpiece, I don't think it's the greatest motion picture of all time. Even so, there's no denying the debt that the movie industry owes to Welles and his debut feature. Motion picture archives and collections across the world would be poorer without copies of this film, which will forever be recognized as a defining example of American cinema.