Formal Evalution of Pan's Labyrinth

Del Toro’s Pan's Labyrinth is easily one of the most creative films ever made in this era. The way he uses disobedience is spectacular. He really thought outside the box in making this movie or better yet, he tore the box up. Del Toro took us into his own little world and told us an unforgettable story about disobedience. In his movie, disobedience is everywhere from the lighting of the movie, the fairy tale concept, and the characters.
Disobedience is the focal point of the movie and it’s what Del Toro wants to instill in our minds. Everything the characters did was related to disobedience. If there wasn’t a scene where the character didn’t show disobedience, Del Toro showed it in a different, subtle way. For example in Pan’s Labyrinth, every scene was dark and gloomy. Bright colors were scarce in this movie. Usually, movies have a bright background or colors to capture the audience attention. Del Toro did the op posite he used dark, melancholy colors to make us feel out of place. Also, I realized in other movies when someone dies the whole scene turns dark and gloomy but when Ofelia died, the scene became cheerful and vibrant. Isn’t that weird?
We are all familiar with the fairy tale concept or the damsel in distress. Like Rapunzel or Snow White. In Pan’s Labyrinth Ofelia dies, when in other fairy tales, there’s always a knight in shining armor ready to save the day. Ofelia didn’t have a knight in shining armor. She wasn't saved and died on the cold labyrinth floor. Even if she did have a knight in shining armor to rescue her from her cold stepfather, Ofelia wouldn’t go into the “afterlife” and become a princess. That's one major part of the story that really makes you think.
The whole picture shows us that in life we live there’s a certain “norm” everyone agrees on. And at time we have to do things that we don’t want to. Either way someone has to die. That’s the way things work in this modern world no matter how much we deny it. For example, her own stepfather at the end of the movie shot Ofelia. We knew it was coming but we didn’t want it to happen. Or how about the man that had his nose bashed in repeatedly by the butt of the gun?
It’s weird how we expect things to be perfect and harmonious while at the same time we ignore the gut feeling that things can go wrong.

THE PURDUE OWL

The power point about the Purdue OWL on Friday opened my eyes to so many things. I learned about different anatomies of arguments such as counterclaims, rebuttals, warrants, and claims. I never knew that there were different elements of arguments. A counterclaim is when you set up a claim in opposition to a previous claim. Rebuttal is evidence that negates or disagrees with the counterclaim. A warrant is why or how the information you find supports your claim. A claim is your thesis or your opening statement. While I was exploring the power point on my own time, I realized that this rubric in use of the Purdue OWL could really take our writing to the next level if you use the right tools. Purdue OWL is a lifesaver for every college student in America.
For some reason, I cannot get acquainted with any of these rubrics except for the Lunsford 11. The Gallaudet critical thinking rubric is confusing for me and makes me very prone towards writer’s block. But now thanks to the Purdue owl website, my problems vanish and gave me better understanding of what the GU rubric demands from our writing. The Owl made me realize the huge gap in my writing is “synthesis.” I never have any problem with getting my ideas on paper but stringing them together is another story. So now whenever I get stuck on a paper or I need someone to revise my work for any errors, I could do it myself with the aid of the Purdue OWL. It’s like I have my own personal teacher right on my computer screen.
On the Owl website, I found a link called Creative Writing and clicked on it. Right before my very eyes were tools that I can use to make my writing more creative and understandable rather than having it all over the place making it arduous for the readers to follow what I’m trying to say. Before I knew about this website I had no idea what the APA format was and now I’m using it pretty well. The only thing I’m bummed about is that whenever there’s a big writing project due, I can’t use the excuse, “ I didn’t understand the prompt or I got stuck” because the Purdue OWL is available 24/7 for your needs and wants. Basically, I highly recommend using the Purdue Owl website and I guarantee it will never cease to fail you.


Here's the website link if you want to learn more about this website: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/

Pan's Labrynith

Pan's Labyrinth is easily the most visual abstract movie I ever saw in my life. The way Del Toro was able to take his vision and put it in movie form. I was impressed it took him two years to produce this movie. He even lost 45 pounds in the process. When you hear about that, you can't just not think about the dedication and perseverance Del Toro had.
I like how at the beginning of the movie, Del Toro starts it off with Ofelia laying on the ground bleeding. It definitely drew my attention and I wanted to find out why was she bleeding? What happened to her? Where is she? From that point on, I was hooked. In this movie, everything was abstract. From the costumes to the setting, I got a creepy, gloomy vibe. The main reason Del Toro created this movie was to instill a sense of disobedience in our minds. He disobeyed basically every rule in making a movie. I'm sure somewhere in the director's guide of making movies there's something that says "Bright colors is a must and cheery vibe is needed to capture the audience attention" Del Toro did the opposite. He chose heavily saturated colors to use as his palette. The characters were always wearing something dark. For example, Faun's fairies ate meat and looked very glum. That's how I came up with the "anti-tinkerbell" idea.

The turning point in the movie was when Ofelia's mother died. During that point, I got a feeling that the captain told the doctor to make sure Ofelia's mom die and save the baby. That was just immoral. I hated it when Ofelia’s mother made her call the captain, “Dad” To me, that was very wrong on so many levels. Ofelia is just a young kid. It’s hard for little kids to deal with a loss of a parent. You can tell in the movie that Ofelia took the loss of her father very hard. She refused to call the captain “Dad” and I give her kudos for that. I also felt so bad for Ofelia and I felt her pain. What did she do to deserve such things to happen to her?
Del Toro reveals the severity of fascism in the movie. Fascism robs people of their individuality to feed the greed of one person to achieve superiority. You can imagine how people around the world deal with this matter every day. We should be thankful we live in a democracy rather than having a communist, or fascist America. God Bless America.