I was disappointed on seeing this film, and surprised that it won the foreign-language best-film Oscar in competition with 'Pan's Labyrinth', since PL is a far better film, with imaginative depth and visceral feeling quite lacking in the worthy German semi-documentary.
The odd thing is that the two have a similar theme, resistance to totalitarian rule -- and both after the fact, since both the East German Communists and Franco's Falange have passed into history. The difference between them is the difference between fact and myth. Fact can be compelling, but surely not so much so, after the fact; myth is always compelling, before the fact or after, and 'Pan's Labyrinth' is myth, folk-tale, Marchen, full of motherhood, blood and mandrake root, grim and beautiful by turns.
The odd thing is that the two have a similar theme, resistance to totalitarian rule -- and both after the fact, since both the East German Communists and Franco's Falange have passed into history. The difference between them is the difference between fact and myth. Fact can be compelling, but surely not so much so, after the fact; myth is always compelling, before the fact or after, and 'Pan's Labyrinth' is myth, folk-tale, Marchen, full of motherhood, blood and mandrake root, grim and beautiful by turns.