Pan's Labyrinth (BFI Film Classics)

Luis Buñuel is quoted as saying: A film is like an involuntary imitation of a dream … On the screen, as within the human being, the nocturnal voyage into the unconscious begins … The cinema seems to have been invented to express the life of the subconscious, the roots of which penetrate poetry so deeply.

I was lucky—I understood inherently George’s vision and had my personal references: Jean-Luc Godard’s Alphaville, to me the first graphic novel-style movie, and Tarkovsky’s Solaris.

That is precisely why it is important to make this film as we enter the chaotic times of the twenty-first century. Princess Mononoke does not purport to solve the problems of the entire world. The battle between rampaging forest gods and humanity cannot end well; there can be no happy ending. Yet, even amid the hatred and slaughter, there are thing