PAN’S LABYRINTH (2006) dir. Guillermo del Toro
THE GREEN KNIGHT (2021) dir. David Lowery
Pan’s Labyrinth / Hannibal
You’re going to a very dangerous place, so be careful. The thing that slumbers there, it’s not human. You will see a sumptuous banquet, but don’t eat or drink anything. Your life depends on it.
Guillermo del Toro, from Cabinet of Curiosities: My Notebooks, Collections, and Other Obsessions
#the framing of these poses kills me every time #his hands are up technically in surrender or supplication but they’re in her space #and they’re covered in blood #and she’s BRANDISHING A PEN AS A WEAPON #so his hands are in her space and hers are in his and they’re pivoting around their bloody hands like dancing #(and that pen is not ~accidentally symbolic AT ALL) #(GdT explicitly says the pen represents her power through her writing) #(which she stops doing when she gets to allerdale hall) #(and is only seen writing again by writing her name just before she fights back) #(yah so i’ve been listening to the commentary and getting emo about gothic archetypes how’s your night going)
I have a book on the color green, written by a French historian named Michel Pastoureau. I haven’t finished it yet, but I have this feeling that perhaps I’d need to in order to properly talk about Guillermo del Toro movies. Everything. Is. Green. Perhaps even more so here than in The Shape of Water, impossible as I would have thought that to be before rewatching Pan’s Labyrinth for the first time in eight years. The greens in The Shape of Water are aquatic, deep and tealed and emotive, or else they are artificially bright and represent The Future. The greens of Pan’s Labyrinth are vegetal, ancient and verdant and fey — Nature green in tooth and claw. I love it always. Guillermo del Toro clearly must as well.
