This grim mind blowing Spanish film written by Guillermo del Toro, originally known as El Laberinto del Fauno, translated to, The Labyrinth of the Faun, is a fantasy story set in Post-Civil War, Spain. Ofelia, the young protagonist, travels with her sick, pregnant mother to meet and live with a sadistic general, Captain Vidal, the father of her soon to be step-brother. During the first night, a fairy comes to Ofelia and leads her to the middle of a crumbling labyrinth where she meets a white-eyed, crippled faun who tells her that she is a princess of the Underworld who has long past died and has been reincarnated in her body. According to legend, before she can be reunited with her father in the Underworld, she must complete three difficult, gruesome tasks to obtain immortality. If she does not succeed with a pure heart in all three tasks before the moon is full, she might lose both worlds. The main theme played throughout this film, is Good vs. Evil vs. Innocence. This film beautifully pronounces this theme through it’s cinematography/lighting, makeup, and camera angles, making this dark film’s aesthetic entrancing with its morbid gore scenes and fairytale like mood. The movie starts out with the faun, named They begin, “Arise, my daughter. Come. You have spilled your own blood rather than the blood of an innocent. That was the final task and the most important.” (Toro, Pan’s Labyrinth), because she sacrificed her own life over the life of an innocent, she was granted rebirth, completing the initiation. But before the film credits roll, the camera flashes back to Ofelia’s bloody body lying on the stone floor, the same scene in which the film begins, making the audience ask themselves: if it was all in this girl’s
Lafaye sets the stage of his story by putting New Spain into context Lafaye emphasizes the peculiar nature of New Spain and its intricacies with in that society. Lafaye presents New Spain not as an intermediate between Indian Mexico and modern Mexico, but rather as transitional period that changed the composition of that society. The author cites the myths of Quetzalcoatl and Guadalupe as one of the most complex and original creations to come out of that period. The development of syncretic myth making according Lafaye to offered an answer to the question of the origins of an orphaned people. These new myths also are telling of a search for legitimacy in Mexican
“Like Water for Chocolate” by Laura Esquivel, is a beautiful romantic tale of an impossible passionate love during the revolution in Mexico. The romance is followed by the sweet aroma of kitchen secrets and cooking, with a lot of imagination and creativity. The story is that of Tita De La Garza, the youngest of all daughters in Mama Elena’s house. According to the family tradition she is to watch after her mother till the day she does, and therefore cannot marry any men. Tita finds her comfort in cooking, and soon the kitchen becomes her world, affecting every emotion she experiences to the people who taste her food. Esquivel tells Titas story as she grows to be a mature, blooming women who eventually rebels against her mother, finds her true identity and reunites with her long lost love Pedro. The book became a huge success and was made to a movie directed by Alfonso Arau. Although they both share many similarities, I also found many distinct differences. The movie lost an integral part of the book, the sensual aspect of the cooking and love.
Valle’s most significant contribution to the Spanish theatre is his invention of the literary style of esperpento, which is best represented in one of his most famous plays, Luces de Bohemia. Valle created esperpento with the aim of representing the harsh realities of Spanish twentieth century society through the concave lens of grotesque deformation, so that he could present the lives of the Spaniards in the light of mockery and absurdity. During his writing of Luces de Bohemia, the Spanish society has been brought to a halt, along with the lack of political progress and social improvement, therefore this concerning political situation has influenced and steered Valle towards his literary evolution, the exaggerated grotesque, which he though was the only suitable way to represent the shocking reality and problems of Spain. In this way, he could alarm the people to terminate their complacent acceptance of this reality and he could also produce a distancing effect which renders the reader immune to the play’s purpose, thus making the artistic experience more tolerable. His experience in the killing fields was what made him t...
This film was the best surreal movie. The story started when Leticia and his husband Edmundo hold a prolific party for the people that belonged to Mexican high society. That was when the servants of the mansion escape but to a surprise, the guests mysteriously sat in sofas and chairs and, remove their jackets to stay for the night. This means
...e that even if they are having a hard life, something beautiful will happen someday to take you out of that ugly and ordinary position, just like the arrival of the angel. Marquez demonstrates that even if someone is physically and/or mentally different, he always has beautiful aspects, just like the villagers described the old man as ugly but they called it “angel” which is a beautiful supernatural being. The story shows also that even in things we dislike or find gross, there is always something great and beautiful. Through these fictional devices, we can clearly see the theme of see the beauty in the ugly and ordinary. This story should convince many people that even if they are going through tough moments in their life, they simply have to look from an outside point of view and they will find out that there is always something beautiful in the ugly and ordinary.
It is said that this book is considered as one of the most famous horror novels, if not the most famous one. The Gothic descriptions in the novel are very prominent at the beginning. The portrayal of the countryside of Transylvania, of the ruined Dracula Castle, etc, all provide the effect of horror in the sense of spooky and gloomy atmosphere, which you can obtain close at hand. Everything is so obvious. The originally beautiful scenes are changed by the writer¡¯s magnification of some specific details which provide certain effect on the readers. All of the above reminds how one¡¯s personal feelings can alter their attitudes towards what they see or what they experience. Sometimes when you are sad, everything look so depressing. It is like the whole world is against you. The sunset could be a fantastic scene when you are filled with joy but an extra source of sorrow when you are not in the mood. Harker is separated from her lovely fianc¨¦e to meet some foreign count in the exotic and unknown eastern world.
The Fantasies of Don Quixote Don Quixote lived in a fantasy world of chivalry. Chivalry had negative and positive effects on the lives of the people. Don Quixote emphasizes a cross-section of. Spanish life, thoughts, and feelings at the end of chivalry. Don Quixote has been called.
By making subtle changes in the ways dreams are portrayed, she shows us that the boy has been changed by his experiences. Before “the betrayals” the dreams are quite indefinite, relying on incomplete images of pincers, claws and fangs to represent the horror. The lines, “His sidelong violence summoned/ fiends whose mosaic vision saw/ his heart entire” are literal indications of his incapability to comprehend what is happening to him. Then he wakes and attempts to seek comfort from the monstrance. His hopes for a miracle, brought on by his innocence, ...
Giants and Angels roam the pages of Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s stories, “A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings”, and “The Handsomest Drowned Man In The World”, creating the perfect scene for magical realism. Many of the elements within these stories coincide with each other; this has everything to do with the overall component of magical realism, which binds together similarities and sets apart differences. The theme of each story can be found within the other and can stand by itself to represent the story it belongs to, the settings are similar in location and the ability to change but different in their downsides and the writing style is so similar it is complicated to find any differences. Marquez is a master story-teller whose works of art can only be compared with each other.
In 1949, Dana Gioia reflected on the significance of Gabriel García Márquez’s narrative style when he accurately quoted, “[it] describes the matter-of-fact combination of the fantastic and everyday in Latin American literature” (Gioia). Today, García Márquez’s work is synonymous with magical realism. In “Un Señor Muy Viejo con Alas Enormes,” the tale begins with be dramatically bleak fairytale introduction:
In the title “In This Strange Labyrinth”, the labyrinth is symbolic of love’s maze-like qualities. The speaker describes her predicament by saying, “In this strange Labyrinth how shall I turn/Ways are on all sides” (1-2). A different path on every side surrounds her, and every way seems to be the wrong way. She is confused about which way she should go. Wroth is conveying the theme of love in a decidedly negative way, for according to myth, the Labyrinth was where the Minotaur lived and before it’s demise, death was evident for all visitors of the maze. The speaker is struggling with every choice she may make and cannot rest or find aid until she finds the best way: “Go forward, or stand still, or back retire;/ I must these doubts endure without allay/ Or help, but travail find for my best hire” (10-11). She has several choices and each one is confusing and leaves her feeling helpless.
Set in Hell, the vision of the underworld is nothing the characters imagined as they are escorted to a Second Empire styled hotel. This is all ironic, in the fact that Sartre never believed in perdition. He uses this fictitious place to persuade his audience. Hell is used as a foundation to prove his point. The characters, Garcin, Inez, and Estelle, are all brought together by some kind of complicated design that they try to unveil. Each character has a story and a reason for their damnation, but what they look for is an answer for their presence with each other. Garcin, a journalist and pacifist that took 12 to the chest, was the first to attempt to mend matters in the room. His idea to be courteous to one another is later contradicted when he begins to fight with Inez. Estelle, a self-absorbed instigator, appears to suffer from denial.
The novel 100 Years of Solitude written by Gabriel Garcia Marquez is one written with many different underlying meanings intended to allow the readers imagination to wander. Marquez’s style of magical realism is unique and very well done so that the reader must interpret what is literal and what may be symbolic to history or simply majestic. In the story there are several instances, in which the story could be compared to that of Adam and Eve, the guilt that drives both Jose Arcadio Buendia and Ursula Iguaran and the use of the “Tree of Knowledge”.
The movie "The Secret in Their Eyes," directed by Juan José Campanella captures the audience with its complex plot of love and murder. Benjamin Espósito and Irene Menéndez are joined together by the haunting story of a brutally raped and murdered young woman: Liliana Coloto. Banjamin becomes completely spellbound with her case because in it, he is able to see reflected his own love for Irene. Even though this movie possesses a vast variety of symbols, three of them; the color red, the letter A and the eyes are able to capture its essence.
“Le Morte d’Arthur” has many religious aspects that are not shown in Excalibur. The film tries to portray the tale as an allegory of the cycle of birth, life, and decay. There are three main allus...