Fairy tales for a mean new world

Hollywood historically has steered away from depicting children in peril, typically limiting any life-or-death struggles to cartoonishly violent genre films such as "The Shining," "Aliens" and "Terminator 2: Judgment Day." But as this new batch of movies underscores, the old rules of childhood engagement are rapidly evolving. Instead of consigning children to the periphery of horrific realities, these films are dragging kids -- preteens to toddlers -- right into the middle of the mayhem.

In a way, the movies are reworking the troubling narratives laid out ages ago in the works of the Brothers Grimm, Hans Christian Andersen and Charles Dickens. And like those authors, some of the filmmakers are using children to make political points. Others find that putting children into jeopardy gives their dramas more of an emotional wallop.

But even for a generation of viewers desensitized by a 24/7 stream of broadband brutality from sources as divergent as the Iraq war and the Ultimate Fighting Championship, some of these movie scenes may prove difficult to stomach.

"These are not your father's fairy tales," says Guillermo del Toro, the writer-director of "Pan's Labyrinth," whose opening shot features an 11-year-old girl apparently dying from a gunshot wound.

Catherine Hardwicke, director of "The Nativity Story," made the decision to depict, rather than just allude to, King Herod's biblical Massacre of the Innocents in her film, with 2-year-olds being dragged to their deaths.

"I think people now are going for a much more realistic, authentic approach," says Hardwicke. "You don't want to leave out things that add to the realism and take you into the moment."

Some of the most troubling imperiled kid scenarios unfold in "Babel," a drama featuring four seemingly unrelated but ultimately intersecting stories. In one, two small American children are abandoned in the desert with their nanny but no food or water; in another, two young Moroccan brothers shoot a rifle with catastrophic results.