I have had a weekend chock-full of quality entertainment. On Saturday four of us went to see Pan's Labyrinth at the Hillcrest Cinemas. It was excellent. It is a fairy tale in the truest classic meaning of the title. It IS a morality tale; its social commentary is poignant, whether or not you know anything about the Spanish Civil War. The movie was dark, disturbing, full of the pain and cruelty of mortal life, but infused with otherworldly beauty and strangeness. I loved it. Although there were several parts where both Lisa and I had to hide our eyes from the violence on the screen, I don't feel that this was a flaw. Unlike so many movies today, as disturbing and graphic as some of the violence was, it was absolutely essential to the story and was integral to character development. The bad guy in the story was somewhat of a caricature, but this also was fitting and not too exaggerated. He was the perfect fairy tale villain, and not quite as one-dimensional as he originally appeared to be. Another small thing that impressed me was the minimal use of CGI special effects--most of what you see on screen is live action combined with puppetry. The acting was superb, the cinematography gorgeous, and the fantasy perfectly blended with the real world in which it was hidden. I doubt everyone will like this film quite as much as I did, but I think it is highly worth your while. Just don't forget to bring someone with you to hold your hand through the scary parts, and beware the most frighteningly creepy movie monster I think I've ever seen.
On Sunday my elusive brother and I went to see a performance of Don Quixote at the San Diego Rep. I finally cashed in my free tickets that I won at the Stone Christmas party. It was well worth the wait. Like everyone else, I read the Cervantes book in high school, but can recall very little of the story other than my highly favorable impression of it. Even though most of the plot details are fuzzy in my memory, I still know enough to tell you that this play was only very loosely based on the original novel. And that is one of the things that made it so wonderful. Paul Magid, one of the original Flying Karamazov Brothers, penned the screenplay and was one of the lead characters. He turned the story into a romping physical comedy punctuated with moments of touching drama and a healthy dose of "why can't all these Muslims/Jews/Christians/white people/brown people just get along?" lamentation. The set was austere other than a luminous backscreen lit to alternately look like a glowing night sky or bright daytime. The costumes were the real visual treat--people became 12-foot high silent windmills, haystacks, towering knights in flashing silver and black, and on one occasion, a Spanish duchess embodying a cross between a Russian diva and Lewis Carroll's Queen of Hearts in the most fantastic skirt ever. This is not the most perfect theater production I've ever seen, but it was absolutely one of the most entertaining. There were singalongs, crazy juggling sequences, lots of cross-dressing, more innuendo than you can shake a stick at, live musicians accompanying the whole thing, and my personal favorite: a ridiculous puppet show starring several members of the vegetable family. If you have time and money this week, you must go see it--the last show is next Sunday, February 4th. I may just go see it again, if I can wrangle more free tickets. I'd like to see Señor Quixote in his camouflage pantaloons one more time.
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