How To Disappear Completely

El Labertino del Fauno

Perhaps because the trailers had no dialogue but the voice-over narrator, I had no idea that Pan's Labyrinth was in Spanish until Sarah and I were standing in the ticket line and the girl ahead of us (either high school or first year undergrad) asked, "Uh...um...Pan's...lath...lab...uh, what's that about?" and the cashier said, "Oh, it's in Spanish with subtitles," to which news the girl muttered "oh, crap, no, I can't do that" and left.

But fortunately Sarah and I love foreign films. And it pleased me to catch more of the phrases than I expected I would. So of course I thought of my dad. He doesn't particularly like movies that much, but he loves Spanish. And I think he would enjoy Pan's Labyrinth.

The theatre was mostly empty, which meant that our running commentary didn't disturb anyone. Which was good, because we kept whispering to each other: "Hey! This is Narnia. It's Mr. Tumnus!" "No, wait, no it's like the Hobbit!" "And that's Harry Potter!" "This just IS Labyrinth."

But if the good fairy tales worked the first time around, why change them? At any rate, the film elicited a deep appreciative sigh from the both of us as the credits rolled.

And I seem to be developing a habit of attracting odd characters whenever I go to that theatre. This time it was an anxious newlywed convinced his wife was going to kill him for being out so late on Valentine's Day. "Why is it?" he said. "Why is it that women fall in love with a guy and they marry him and you'd think they fell in love with the guy for who he is and they are obviously happy with him because they married him, but then. Then they have to go about changing him! I don't get it. Why are all women like that?" And he eagerly looked to me to solve this mystery of Venus.

And not being too particularly interested in engaging in anti-essentialist debate at midnight while standing in a snow drift waiting for a bus, I helpfully suggested, "Well, maybe it's something you'll just have to learn how to deal with."