Have you ever watched a movie not in your native language, while watching did you notice changes in the cultural aspects of the characters and the settings, did you see similarity to your culture and did you see what was different, what about physical surroundings, social cues, cultural influences, economic situations, and politics?
Well this weekend I decided to watch Pan’s labyrinth in Spanish it translate to El Laberinto del fauno, or The labyrinth of the Faun in English. The film is a 2006 Spanish dark fantasy drama which is directed by Guillermo Del Toro and is presented in the language Spanish with English subtitles. While watching I kept note on the differences and similarities. To start let me give a quick rundown of the plot. The story takes place in Spain, 1944, where the main character Ofelia has a new stepfather, the Falangist Captain Vidal, who hunts the Spanish Marquis who fight against the Francoist regime while Ofelia’s pregnant mother Carmen grows increasingly ill. While this is going on Ofelia meets several strange and magical creatures who become important to her story, leading her through the trials of an old labyrinth. Now that I have discussed the plot lets start with the cultural aspects of the characters and the setting, with the movie being set in 1944 it has a strong male dominance present which represents how most of the world worked back then. Also it shows Ofelia as a young girl who wants to just play outside and explore nature showing off how less technology was involved in the world during the 1940s compared to today. They traveled by car in the movie which has not changed a whole lot in the present day. They did not really eat staple foods in the movie since they were placed in a cabin located in the woods this is because Carmen and Ofelia moved to live with Captain Vidal who’s military post keep him in seclusion. For the surroundings in the movie It was very floral since it was a large forest in Spain which had the people and troops cut off from outside sources. The economic and politic situation in the movie is pretty bad since the country is at a type of rebellion or civil war deriving the country of unity and making the central government use funds to fight a war within themselves. These are just some of the differences I saw while watching this movie If you are interested in viewing or researching what this movie is all about I will have two links posted below!
This link is to a trailer to the movie!
This link is to the movie on Netflix!
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