death

Spanish 105 Section 1
Professor Leigh Cherry
Joy Marie Prior
Pan’s Labyrinth

Hollywood films have three types of deaths, starting with civilians. Most civilians are crushed under falling buildings, exploded in crashing cars, or murdered ruthlessly by the villain. Next is the character I call the “did-not-know-what-to-do-with-character-but-needed-for-the-plot”. If in the first ten minutes of a Hollywood movie you meet a character with a memorable face and not a memorable name, or if during the movie there is an unexpected selflessly character who befriends the hero they are a “did-not-know-what-to-do-with-character-but-needed-for-the-plot.” The percent of “did-not-know-what-to-do-with-character-but-needed-for-the-plot” who die in a film depends on the genera of movie: in an action flick 83%, in a romance film 50%, and in an inspirational picture 98%. Hollywood’s most dramatic level of death is the hero’s death. This death is distinguishable from all the others. There is ridicules slow-motion, music that fogs out all the other sounds, and a sudden flashback of the character running towards a lover. Hollywood does do some variations between theses three; a little more slow-motion here, some louder music there, but there is one cardinal rule Hollywood does not break. Hollywood rarely kills the villain, and if the villain does die he falls off a cliff, or there is a freak of nature accident. In Pan’s Labyrinth when the revolutionaries shot Captain Vidal on the spot I was shocked, shocked is the wrong word, because I think that I was in awe.
In American Hollywood films when the revolutionaries capture the villain they take him to the people’s court and impression him, but this is not what happened in Pan’s Labyrinth. When Captain Vidal walks out of the labyrinth with his baby son at the end of the movie he is stopped by the revolutionaries. They have just burned his fort to the ground and have taken control. Captain Vidal knows that they are going to kill him. He even says, “after you kill me tell my son what time I died.” The people did not even bat an eyelash, and after he speaks they kill the Captain. Shock is not the right word, because I think that unexpected describes how most the audience felt. There seems to be this sugar coated concept of death in Hollywood films, but Pan’s Labyrinth did not try and cover up the captain’s death. I felt like they did not simply have justification to kill the captain, but that they killed him justly. Like I mentioned above the Captain expected them to kill him. I would even dare to claim that the Captain thought he deserved death. His death was quick and instant; there was no slow-motion or dramatic music, because remember that is saved for the hero. Unlike a Hollywood film the heroes killed the villain point blank.
The hero’s death in Pan’s Labyrinth is similar to a Hollywood death. When Ofelia died she was bathed in a stream of moonlight, and just like any good old Hollywood death there was music, and slow-motion. I wondered if the Mexican director was affected by Hollywood cinema, or if that is what people really feel like when someone dies. The idea that time slows down, and the deceased deserve something as powerfully tender as music to take them into the next life seems to be universal to Mexican and American films. I have never had anyone exceptionally close to me die before, and so I don’t know exactly how the death of a loved one feels. While watching the Pan’s Labyrinth and particularly Ofelia’s death I realized how much of the movie I understood; I did not understand a lot linguistically, but I understood the emotion behind Ofelia’s death. The fact that I could understand Ofelia’s death was not shocking to me, but comforting. It made me realize that all cultural (well sane cultural) value life, and respect the dead. More significant I recognized that no one needed to tell me when the hero died, because I knew from the emotions expressed that it was the hero’s death.
In Spanish, in English, from a stage in Hollywood, or a scene in Mexico cinema holds to the same standard a hero has a heroic death, and the villain has a pathetic death.