Excellent review of Pan's Labyrinth (with spoiler)

What's satisfying about this film is its insistence that true resistance to despotism must always be political. Ofelia's fantasies are more than merely escapist because they allow her to find political allies. In fact, after defeating the eyeball monster, Ofelia begs Mercedes to take her to the rebels in the forest because she'd rather live among them than stay in the Captain's house. I suppose we can regard the film's conclusion in this light. Though Ofelia may not have survived, she was liberated. She fought the only way she knew how.

For a darker take on the film's ending, one might look at Ofelia's fantasies and unnecessary death as commentary on the Marxist rebels. After all, their politics were ultimately as useless as Ofelia's fantasies were: Franco was not deposed, and the leftist resistance was crushed. Did the Marxists die in vain? Were their hopes for justice in Spain just as fantastical as Ofelia's hopes for peace among the fairies? I don't think so. This film, with its vivid realization of the fairy world, wants us to believe in the power of fantasy to transform the world. Sometimes those fantasies ease the pain of an abused little girl, and sometimes they suggest a way to end the suffering of an entire people.

In the end, Pan's Labyrinth reminds us that buried in every fantasy is a political wish. And buried in every political wish is a fantasy. No matter how many times you crush them, the fantasies return.

I still think Cheney is the Pale Man. A remarkable resemblance, wouldn't you say?

Cheney is the Pale Man

From the movie Pan's Labyrinth:

Rude Pundit explains the horrific connection:

So it was that Blitzer, in Cheney's office, tried to confront the Vice President, repeatedly. Attempting to pin down Cheney on the administration's role in destabilizing Iraq and plunging the region into its inevitable conflagration, Blitzer asked, "How much responsibility do you have, though -- you and the administration -- for this potential scenario?" Trying to hold Dick Cheney, though, is like trying to hold down a slug. Blitzer, wanting to avoid being swallowed whole, said that Saddam Hussein had been contained. Cheney, chewing hard, gurgled, "He was not being contained. He was not being contained, Wolf. Wolf, the entire sanctions regime had been undermined by Saddam Hussein," before dismissing Blitzer with "You can go back and argue the whole thing all over again, Wolf, but what we did in Iraq in taking down Saddam Hussein was exactly the right thing to do." Blitzer fought like a son of a bitch, eventually extricating himself and getting out of the water, because, as those who swim with man-eating fish beasts know, the shark always comes back to where the blood is. Or it just swims off, knowing it'll eat again soon.

Cheney stuck a shiv into Blitzer, repeatedly, if we think about the bearded one as our proto-citizen questioning the powerful. He questioned Blitzer's objectivity, he said that if Americans "don't have the stomach for the fight. That's the biggest threat," he dismissed half of America by saying that the reason Hillary Clinton wouldn't be a good President is "Because she's a Democrat," he told Congress it can go fuck itself, and, when Blitzer attempted to engage Cheney on the wackoid religious right's reaction to his muff-diver daughter's pregnancy, he became the outraged father, saying, "You're out of line with that question." By that point, though, any attempt to appear human, beyond his fleshy form, was long past worthless.

It was a disturbing twenty-minutes, filled with an unending stream of revulsion and disgust, not unlike catching your roommate masturbating to pornographic images of severe burn victims. And, at the end, we learned that Dick Cheney's contempt for Congress, the American people, and the Constitution is boundless, like the roots of depravity that tie him to the earth and feed his barely beating "heart."

Note: The Rude Pundit is thinking about another metaphor. See, in the film Pan's Labyrinth, there's a being that's called (in the credits) the Pale Man. (Suppose this oughta say "Spoiler Alert," although if you've seen a damn preview, you've seen the dude.) Bald with saggy skin, blind except for eyes that rest on a plate in front of him, the Pale Man sits still and silent at the head of a table that holds a sumptuous banquet. Our adolescent heroine, Ofelia, has been warned not to eat anything. She looks up at paintings in the large chamber and sees that the Pale Man is portrayed as skewering and eating children, as clear a warning as anything can be. Ofelia is too tempted though, and she downs two grapes. This awakens the Pale Man, who inserts the eyes into his hands and he rises, dragging his thin legs and limping towards Ofelia, who doesn't notice the Pale Man coming towards her. Who is Ofelia? Blitzer? All of us? Either way, a pissed-off Cheney thinking someone's taking his shit is not to be fucked with.