It’s one of the best fantasy movies and it almost got stuck in the back seat of a cab


The fate of a work is sometimes due to so few things… Demonstration with the misadventure experienced around a film which is, even today, considered to be THE masterpiece of its brilliant director.

Genius storyteller lovingly chiselling stories where the marvelous often rubs shoulders with tragedy and horror; filmmaker with an encyclopaedic culture, as capable of endlessly evoking his love of the works of the painter Francisco de Goya, as comics, video games or expounding on Victor Hugo, HP Lovecraft and Luis Bunuel, Guillermo del Toro walks in the small world of the cinema its silhouette of nice ogre, always enthusiastic and impassioned, since already about thirty years.

And, happily, for many years to come, when he has just been awarded the Oscar for Best Animated Film for his Pinocchio, five years after receiving the Best Director statuette for The Shape of ‘water.

In 2006, he delivered an extraordinary film, which many still consider his masterpiece. A work full of poetry and sensitivity, where the marvelous was a refuge from the horrors of fascism: Pan’s labyrinth. Presented at the Cannes Film Festival that year, it was a serious candidate for the Palme d’Or, which will ultimately be awarded to Ken Loach’s The Wind Rises.

Spanish-Mexican Coproduction, Pan’s Labyrinth was a very special project for him, which was close to his heart. In fact, he had started thinking about it as early as 1993, writing down his ideas in his notebook. A precious notebook to which he holds like the apple of his eye, in which he writes down absolutely everything: his ideas for films, drawings, his dreams, writes stories… In short, for the director’s fans as for himself : a colossal mine of information.

In February 2022, del Toro attended a Q&A session held in Los Angeles, to celebrate the 15th anniversary of the film’s release. “After the success of Hellboy And Blade III was offered all the superhero movies – then they were starting to come back” said del Toro. “I thought about it because it was very tempting and I said, ‘Am I doing Pan’s Labyrinth or am I making a big movie?”

A sign of fate

Still undecided on his decision, a twist of fate will take care of it for him: he forgot in this period on the back seat of a London taxi his famous notebook. In misfortune, he wants to see it as a sign: “I understand Lord, I’ll do Pan’s Labyrinth. But give me back my notebook!”

A very unfortunate oversight that left him completely distraught. Two decades of annotations were in it, and with a screenplay yet to be written, he would have to abandon the project before he even started it. He had lost everything.

Warner Bros. / Wild Bunch International

After a few days, the taxi driver managed to locate him and return his precious notebook. Pan’s Labyrinth will be released just two years after Hellboy. “I like to go from big films to small films” comments the filmmaker in this Q&A session.

“I like it because it keeps you honest, and it scares you. Both things are very important. But everything that could go wrong on Pan’s Labyrinth went wrong. And the team thought we were crazy”.

“I thought I was making this film for a very small audience!” said del Toro. It was visibly unfamiliar with the enthusiastic and receptive reactions of spectators overwhelmed by this version of Alice in Wonderland of an abyssal darkness, where the marvelous, at the cost of an immense sacrifice, that of childhood, triumphs over fascism. A pivotal work in the already rich career of the filmmaker; and undoubtedly one of the greatest films of this decade.



Source link -103