I've now got approx. 20 of my 60 professional development hours as well a semi-completed class room. I've begun to have dreams about the first day of school; that's how I know I'm getting anxious/eager/let's get it over with!
On Friday night I watched Pan's Labyrinth with Michael and Matt. I LOVED it. It reminded me a lot of the Jim Henson version because both had the plot structure of a girl trying to save her baby brother and escape various tyrannical elements: military dictators, parents, etc.
I really want to show this movie after we've reviewed some basic concepts like allusion, (to Greek mythology, Catholic ritual, etc.), symbolism, parallel structure, moral allegory, religious allegory, fable, as well as the connection to history and art with the Spanish civil war, WWII, and Guernica. Which could then lead to some wonderful discussions about the relationship between art (film, canvas, poetry...) to world events and the human response to both.
I would really like to show this movie when we begin to read Antigone, so that we can talk about the references to Greek myth, (the pomegranite, Pan/Bacchus, etc.) as well as the tragic heroine, which I would argue Ofelia is a perfect model for. I smell a Venn diagram somewhere.
The most academic part of our film discussion on Friday, though, had to be when we decided that the Pan monster looked a lot like the Tool guy from a video off the Undertow album. See what you think:
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