13 January 2008 Pan's Labyrinth

Last Night I went to a movie with my friends. Unintentionally, just
because there's an extra ticket. I knew that the movie will be good,
however it fall below my expectation. I knew that it's a fantasy
movie, just I don't expect that it's dark in theme. The story is
about a child, Ofelia, whose mother is married to a Spanish captain
during Gen. Franco's reign and eliminating the communists rebels. The
captain is cruel, and his only intention to bring Ofelia and her
mother come is because Ofelia's mom is bearing his son. Ofelia love
to read books and have a sheer imagination. One day she met a fairy,
who brings him to a Faun (Pan). The Faun told her that she's a
princess of a forgotten world, who suppose to be immortal. However,
she cannot go back to her kingdom until she prove that although her
body is changed, her soul / spirit is still the same. There's three
tasks to do before the full moon.

The first is to feed a frog who live under a dead Oak Tree with three
magic stones, to obtain a golden key. Ofelia managed to do this,
despite she has to face her mother's disappointment for not showing
in an important dinner supposed to introduce her and her mother as
the captain's new wife. She's punished to miss her dinner.

The next task is to retrieve a dagger from a baby eater. Although the
Faun already warn her not to eat the food on the table, Ofelia
tempted to eat two grapes (perhaps because she's hungry). She managed
to runaway, at the costs two of Faun's fairy.

The last task is to bring her brother to the Faun (after her mother's
death). She managed to trick the captain, and kidnap her brother (her
brother is kept in captain's room). However there's a trick here, the
Faun wants to sacrifice the baby so that Ofelia could enter the
kingdom. Ofelia refused, the captain found them and shot Ofelia. Her
blood is dripped, and Ofelia died. However because of this self-
sacrifice she's granted to enter the kingdom as a princess. *some
note here, in the real world Ofelia is shown dead in front of
Mercedes, who hum her an old lullaby. It's not clear that what happen
is real or only her imagination.

On the backdrop of her quests, she still has problems such as her
mother's pregnancy, the maid (Mercedes) and doctor's (Fierro) backing
up rebels army (lead by Mercedes' brother Pedro), later the birth of
her brother, and the death of her mother, and the rebels attack the
camp.

Time-Lapse

Recently I spring clean my room, and found the 'almost forgotten' 2000 pieces jigsaw puzzle. The picture is "the Zodiac". I decided to finish it to begin this year, and did it in 10 days (started 27 Dec, finished 5 January). Since I know that this will be done in a couple of days, I decide to experiment with Time-lapse photography. What is Time-lapse? basically take photos of on going process of something. Therefore you could see as the progress goes. Here's the result:



and here's the finished puzzle: