The Cannes Film Festival paid tribute this Tuesday to Mexican Guillermo del Toro and his film ‘Pan’s Labyrinth’, on the 20th anniversary of the Spanish-Mexican production premiered precisely at the French event, a film that the filmmaker now sees even more “relevant” to overcome “fear” with “hope”.
“We can give ourselves to love or to fear. Never, never, never give in to fear,” said Del Toro (Guadalajara, 1964), after recalling how extremely difficult it was for him to carry out that project.
The film, restored in 4K, served to open the Cannes Classics section of the festival on the French Riviera – a section dedicated to celebrating the history of cinema and of the event itself – just hours before the grand opening ceremony, which will take place tonight with a parade of stars on the red carpet and with New Zealander Peter Jackson in the spotlight to collect a Palme d’Honneur.
Pan’s Labyrinth’ served as an appetizer to the premiere, invoking a “renewed” idea of classic cinema, as explained the general delegate of the festival, Thierry Frémaux, when presenting the screening, since the film is only two decades old but is already part of the history of cinema.
In 2006, this title was the last of the official competition to be shown and received a 23-minute standing ovation, something that was almost repeated this Monday with the audience in the Debussy auditorium of the Palacio de Festivales on their feet to welcome Del Toro.
“It was the last one 20 years ago and it’s the first one this year,” Frémaux commented.
“It was the last one and everyone had left, and now everyone is still arriving,” the Oscar-winning Mexican director laughed.
With emotion, the director of titles such as ‘The Shape of Water’ (2017) recalled that everything was against him to make this supernatural story set in the years after the Spanish Civil War, that no one wanted to produce it and that he went to the limit to submit it to the 2006 edition of the Cannes Film Festival.
“It was the second worst filming experience of my life,” he admitted, “the first being doing ‘Mimic’ with the Weinsteins (Bob and Harvey Weinstein, producers).
He could not have done it without the actors, he admitted, and especially mentioned Spain’s Ivana Baquero, who played the child Ophelia who headed the cast, which also included Sergi López and Ariadna Gil, among others.
And, moved, he recalled that he was surprised by the applause at the gala premiere in Cannes, which lasted as long “as going from home to work”, because he was not used to it.
“We can’t change history, but we can change it a little,” he invited with a message of hope, especially in an era in which there is no need to “resist” the fact that anyone can make art with a mobile application, reported Agencia EFE.
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