Something to watch tonight: Thursday 13 June

Pan’s Labyrinth (Del Toro, 2006)

Back in April 2007, I spent more of my brief review of Pan’s Labyrinth explain­ing who Guillermo Del Toro was than talk­ing about the film.

Which was kind of fair enough at the time as, while he had made some high pro­file Hollywood com­ic book adapt­a­tions (Blade II, Hellboy), his auteur and Spanish-language films (Cronos, The Devil’s Backbone) were much less well-known. Pan’s Labyrinth was the film where both strands came together.

Like he did in the great The Devil’s Backbone in 2001, Del Toro tells the story of a child caught up in the hor­rors of Spain’s Civil War, escap­ing into a world of fantasy that may be more dan­ger­ous than the ter­ri­fy­ing real world out­side. Pan’s Labyrinth is com­pletely bril­liant on every level.

That’s basic­ally all I wrote about it!

It was a big week – Mr. Bean’s Holiday, Charlotte Rampling romance Twice Upon a Time, Edward Norton get­ting act­ing les­sons from Paul Giamatti in The Illusionist* and Anthony Minghella’s last film Breaking and Entering* – so you could see why “com­pletely bril­liant on every level” might have to suffice.

*Future recom­mend­a­tions here if they ever find their way to streaming.

Where to watch Pan’s Labyrinth

Aotearoa: Streaming on Māori+ (free), Beamafilm (free with some lib­rary cards) or Shudder/AMC+

Australia: Streaming on Beamafilm (free with some lib­rary cards) or Shudder/AMC+

Canada: Streaming on Shudder/AMC+ or Starz

Ireland: Digital rent­al from Apple or Rakuten

USA: Digital rent­al from Apple, Amazon, Fandango, Microsoft or Spectrum

UK: Streaming on Studiocanal

Further reading

My look at four recent music titles that are avail­able on New Zealand stream­ers has been pos­ted to RNZ. I watched the sta­di­um con­cert movie Gaga Chromatica Ball; David Letterman vis­it­ing Dublin to meet with half of U2, Bono and The Edge: A Sort of Homecoming; a doc­u­ment­ary about racism in coun­try music inspired by Beyoncé’s new album Cowboy Carter, Call Me Country; and the excel­lent bio­graphy of the folk sing­er Joan Baez: I am a Noise.

I’d also like to point you towards this art­icle by read­er CP of Auckland from his Substack, Ephemeral. Ostensibly it’s a review of the Apple TV+ series Dark Matter and – because that’s my turf – I wouldn’t nor­mally go out of my way to men­tion it but it’s such a lovely piece of writ­ing I can’t help myself.

Besides, at cur­rent pace I might not get around to Dark Matter for a few months so you might as well hear about it from Chris!