It's meant to be ambiguous

As is Donnie Darko (although the director's cut of DD is far less subtle). I don't think Pan's is meant to add up, e.g the thing with the mandrake root (and the chalk) could be explained by arguing that the director is using the girl's perspective (in contrast to the cap-ee-tan's (sorry, couldn't resist) at the end. I've only seen it once though BTW

I think the ambiguity is the best thing about both films. I think you're maybe right about foreign films often receiving disproportionate amounts of praise. However, on the other hand it could be argued that only the best of the best films from other countries make it over to the UK and US. It's hard to say though, I'm sure some snobbery exists but there are plenty of critically/commercially successful English films that get slated by individuals and so you wouldn't expect everyone to like every popular foreign language film

Posted By: scruffy, Jun 4, 12:01:51