A dark fairy tale ... Pan's Labyrinth
For those with a weakness for the beautiful monsters of modern cinema, Mexican maestro Guillermo del Toro has earned a deserved reputation as the finest living exponent of fabulist film. Gregarious and personable, with an almost photographic recall of faces, he has charmed both the hardcore horror fans, who gave him a hero's welcome at London's Frightfest in August, and now the upmarket critical cognoscenti, who snapped to attention following his Palme d'Or nomination for his new film Pan's Labyrinth at Cannes in May.Set against the backdrop of fascist Spain in 1944, Pan's Labyrinth is a dark fairy tale that distils his distinctive mix of fact and fantasy, poetry and politics, pain and pleasure. It's an epic, poetic vision in which the grim realities of war are matched and mirrored by a descent into an underworld populated by fearsomely beautiful monsters - a transformative, life-affirming nightmare which is, for my money, the very best film of the year.
Since the early 1990s, del Toro has divided his film-making between personal European projects (the modern vampiric chiller Cronos in 1993; the ghostly Spanish Civil War fable The Devil's Backbone in 2001) and big-budget Hollywood hits (ongoing comic-book franchises Blade II in 2002, and Hellboy in 2004). Those familiar with the guilty ghosts of The Devil's Backbone will recognise key motifs in his new fable, about a young girl's exploration of a labyrinthine underworld in Franco-era Spain.
The young heroine of Pan's Labyrinth is Ofelia, whose widowed mother, Carmen, has recently married Vidal, a vicious captain in Spain's Civil Guard, involved in policing anti-fascist Maquis resistance in the mountainous wooded northern region. Vidal's housekeeper, Mercedes, befriends Ofelia, protecting her from her stepfather's wrath while maintaining secretive connections with the Maquis. Meanwhile, Ofelia meets an alarmingly devious faun who suggests that she may be the lost princess of a beautiful and terrifying netherworld. While Mercedes attempts to help the Maquis in their struggles, Ofelia embarks on a quest that will test her true nature.AdvertisementThis quest involves a journey through a labyrinth, a word with which the Civil War has become intrinsically linked (think of key historical accounts such as Gerald Brenan's The Spanish Labyrinth) and which served as the 'perfect metaphor' for del Toro's endeavours.
'A maze is a place where you get lost,' he explains. 'But a labyrinth is essentially a place of transit, an ethical, moral transit to one inevitable centre. You think of the transit of Spanish society from the 1940s to the incredible explosion of the post-Franco period. The 1980s in Spain were like the 1960s in the rest of the world! In the movie, Ofelia is a "princess who forgot who she was and where she came from", who progresses through the labyrinth to emerge as a promise that gives children the chance never to know the name of their father - the fascist. It's a parable, just as The Devil's Backbone was a parable of the Spanish Civil War.
'I was also trying to uncover a common thread between the "real world" and the "imaginary world"through one of the seminal concerns of fairy tales: choice. It's something that has intrigued me since Cronos, through Hellboy and now to Pan's Labyrinth: the way your choices define you. And I thought it would be great to counterpoint an institutional lack of choice, which is fascism, with the chance to choose, which the girl takes in this movie.'
Del Toro's faun is just one of the film's menagerie of fantastical creatures and monsters, drawn from sources that range from Goya's paintings to Clive Barker's Books of Blood. Amazingly for a film that features around 300 effects shots and boasts complex creature designs, Pan's Labyrinth was completed for a mere £10m, a feat del Toro attributes to the lessons learnt on Blade II and Hellboy ('I love to play with the big toys... and to learn from them'). As always, the director sketched each character in the notebooks that are his constant companions, extraordinary documents of his mind at work and his obsessive attention to detail. Here we find the original drawings for the 'vegetable baby' which Ofelia places beneath her mother's bed, nurtured with milk and magic, and the terrifying 'pale man' whose ire she arouses by stealing from his table.
'I wanted to represent political power within the creatures,' del Toro says. 'And that particular character somehow came to represent the church and the devouring of children. The original design was just an old man who seemed to have lost a lot of weight and was covered in loose skin. Then I removed the face, so it became part of the personality of the institution. But then, what to do about the eyes? So I decided to place stigmata on the hands and shove the eyes into the stigmata. Having done that, I thought it would be great to make the fingers like peacock feathers that fluff and open. That's how that figure evolved.
'The faun proved more difficult. The idea was to make him very masculine, not aggressively so, just sinuous. I remember talking to Doug Jones [who plays both the faun and the pale man] when he first started working on the role and saying, "More Mick Jagger, less David Bowie!" I wanted the faun to have a rock star quality. Everything about the faun and his personality needed to be masculine because you had to pit the female energy of the girl against something monolithic.'
In essence, del Toro is a divided soul, a realist attuned to the strange vibrations of the supernatural, a lapsed Catholic ('not quite the same thing as an atheist') with an interest in sacrifice and redemption who turned down the chance to direct The Chronicles of Narnia because he 'wasn't interested in the lion resurrecting'. Crucially, like the artistic refugees from Franco's Spain who first inspired him, the writer-director considers himself an exile from his home country, Mexico, not least because of the 1997 kidnapping of his father, at the height of a vogue for such ransomed abductions. He was released after 72 days.
'I was 33,' el Toro recalls. 'The perfect age to be crucified! I had lived my life believing two things - that pain should not be sought, but, by the same token, it should never be avoided, because there is a lesson in facing adversity. Having gone through that experience, I can attest, in a non-masochistic way, that pain is a great teacher. I don't relish it, but I learn from it. I always say, even as an ex-Catholic, that God sends the letter, but not the dictionary. You need to forge your own dictionary.'
This willingness to confront pain and to forge his own cinematic dictionary has informed the blend of innocence and brutality that is a trademark of del Toro's phantasmagorical cinema. From the crushing addiction of Cronos, whose ageing anti-hero is reduced to licking blood from the tiled floor of a public lavatory, to the redemptive fantasy of Hellboy, whose titular demon takes an industrial grinder to the horns on his head in a bid to take control of his destiny, del Toro has returned compulsively to these twinned themes. Now in Pan's Labyrinth, which he wrote, directed and produced, he has created a Citizen Kane of fantasy cinema, a masterpiece made entirely on his own terms.
Del Toro is working within the same tradition of cinematic horror that spawned A Nightmare on Elm Street, Wes Craven's seminal reinvention of the 'classic dark fairytale', in which Freddy Krueger emerged as an 1980s incarnation of the Big Bad Wolf. 'I think that really is one of the best fairytales of any decade, because Craven understands the roots of those myths,' says del Toro. Pan's Labyrinth is being promoted in America with a classic horror tagline: 'Innocence has a power that evil cannot imagine'.
That power is also self-generating. 'Pan's Labyrinth is a movie about a girl who gives birth to herself into the world she believes in,' del Toro continues. 'At that moment, it doesn't matter if her body lives or dies. And this is something I have experienced. I remember the worst experience of my life, even above the kidnapping of my father, was shooting Mimic [del Toro's first Hollywood feature, in 1997, which was severely compromised by producer interference]. Because what was happening to me and the movie was far more illogical than kidnapping, which is brutal, but at least there are rules. Now when I look at Mimic, what I see is the pain of a deeply flawed creature that could have been so beautiful.'
Pain and beauty, brutality and innocence - once again, del Toro's conversation finds a way back to the central duality of death and rebirth. 'Those things are one and the same,' he says. 'It would be a cliche to say that, because I am a Mexican, I see death in a certain way. But I have seen more than my share of corpses, certainly more than the average First World guy. I worked for months next to a morgue that I had to go through to get to work. I've seen people being shot; I've had guns put to my head; I've seen people burnt alive, stabbed, decapitated ... because Mexico is still a very violent place. So I do think that some of that element in my films comes from a Mexican sensibility.'
Like the heroine of Pan's Labyrinth, del Toro's career now seems to be at a point of rebirth and regeneration. 'Hopefully, this movie will allow me to start a new path,' he says. 'The way I see my craft, and the way I see the stories I tell, has completely changed as a result of this movie. Shooting Pan's Labyrinth was very painful, but it also became a war about me not compromising.
'I gave back my entire salary in order to get the film made the way I wanted it. I probably should have abandoned it the moment the funding fell through the first time, but I stuck with it for almost two-and-a-half years and refused to back down. It's the first time in the six movies I've directed where I've said: I'm doing this one my way, no matter what.
'Financiers ran out on me and everyone involved in my career was saying it was the biggest mistake I could make. But I'm very happy with the result. And for me, nothing will be the same again.
''Pain should not be sought - but it should never be avoided'
For sheer imaginative brio, Pan's Labyrinth is one of the films of the year. But the dark fable was a labour of love for director Guillermo del Toro, who says that violence in his native Mexico is key to his extraordinary vision
Mark Kermode - The Guardian (This is an edited version of an article from the December issue of Sight and Sound). First published on Mon 6 Nov 2006 02.09 AEDT
FILM REVIEW
Embracing the Darkness, Sorrow, and Brutality of Pan’s LabyrinthMike Perschon
Wed May 25, 2011 11:00am
I lost track of how many times I have seen Pan’s Labyrinth while using it as a case study for my Master’s thesis: I watched it at normal speed, on high speed, with commentary, and without; I watched all the DVD extras, then watched them again. After I had defended my thesis, my wife asked me what I wanted to watch. I replied, “One more time, all the way through.” Since then, I’ve viewed it in six different courses as my end-of-term movie (I realize students stop reading several weeks before the end of term, so I prefer to work with that problem, not against it). And when students ask me if I’m tired of watching it, I reply, “No. Every time I watch it, I see something new.”
I’ve met a number of people who cannot imagine someone subjecting themselves to an encore viewing, let alone so many they lose count. These viewers dislike Pan’s Labyrinth for its darkness, for the sorrow and tragedy of its ending. They find the brutality of Captain Vidal abhorrent (and well they should). Like Stephen King, they are terrified by the Pale Man. For many, the film’s darkness overshadows the light; consequently, viewers are often repulsed by it. I love Pan’s Labyrinth for its darkness, sorrow, and brutality. Without those harsh elements the film would be a milquetoast modern fairytale, as tame as The Lady in the Water: a tale of wide-eyed wonder without the wolf.
Fairy tales are often stripped of their darkest and most threatening elements, or transformed into complex morality tales to mirror current values, the victim of an overprotective industry of children’s literature. This is not a new development. To make fairy tales more suitable for young audiences, editors in Victorian England altered the tales, omitting events or elements they deemed too harsh. While many children’s fairy tale collections include a version of Little Red Riding Hood in which the huntsman comes to the rescue before the wolf attacks, the Brothers Grimm’s tale of Little Red Cap describes the “dear little girl whom everyone loved” being “gobbled up” quite suddenly. The wolf eventually meets his demise following an abrupt caesarean section rescue, compounded by a lethal case of massive gall stones courtesy of Little Red Cap, while in another version, Little Red Cap baits the wolf into drowning.
In some modern versions of Little Red Riding Hood, the wolf’s violent demise is replaced by a hasty getaway. Patricia Richards, in an article titled “Don’t Let a Good Scare Frighten You: Choosing and Using Quality Chillers to Promote Reading,” notes that the alteration of the wolf’s fate from execution to evasion is perceived as “less violent and less frightening, but children found it scarier because the threat of the wolf remains unresolved.” Rather than finding gory or horrific details of devoured heroes or drowned villains terrifying, children reported they found “stories with no endings as frightening.”
If ambiguity over the demise of the villain is maintained, then a sense of horror remains. This is a standard trope of the horror movie, utilized for the utilitarian possibility of the money-making sequel, but artistically for a sense of lingering dread. The audience feels a sense of relief when Rachel Keller, the heroine of The Ring seems to have assuaged the vengeance-driven ghost-child Samara; the major-key musical swell tells us they all lived happily-ever-after. This moment is shattered when Rachel returns home to tell her son Aidan all is well, only to have the hollow-eyed Aidan reply, “You weren’t supposed to help her. Don’t you understand, Rachel? She never sleeps.” The ensuing nightmare return of Samara onscreen has become an iconic moment in horror.
As a director, Guillermo Del Toro is well suited to dealing with horror in his fairy tale; his filmography prior to Pan’s Labyrinth, without exception, depicts a struggle between good and evil, from the subtle and nuanced Devil’s Backbone to the comic book morality of Hellboy, to the monstrous villains of Cronos, Blade II, and Mimic.
Captain Vidal, the wicked stepfather of Pan’s Labyrinth, serves both as the real-world, real-life villain within the film’s ontology of Franco’s Spain, and also the cipher by which the monstrosities of faerie can be understood. The two monsters of Pan’s Labyrinth, the Monstrous Toad and the Pale Man, can be read as expressions of Vidal’s monstrosity, viewed through the childsight lens of Faerie. Ofelia’s entrance into the colossal fig tree inhabited by the Monstrous Toad presents a subtle sexual imagery. The entrance to the tree is shaped like a vaginal opening with its curved branches resembling fallopian tubes, a resemblance which Del Toro himself points out in the DVD commentary. The tree’s sickened state mirrors her pregnant mother’s fragile condition, further manifested by a vision of blood-red tendrils creeping across the page of Ofelia’s magic book. This vision occurs immediately prior to Ofelia’s mother’s collapse due to a complication in the pregnancy, as copious amounts of blood run from between her legs.
The connection between the Tree and Ofelia’s mother is overt, and intentional, on Del Toro’s part. These images are symbolic markers for the sexual union between Ofelia’s mother and Vidal. Vidal is the giant toad, who has entered the tree out of lustful appetites, slowly killing the tree through its “insatiable appetite” for the pill bugs within. Vidal is a subtle Bluebeard—while he does not actively cannibalize Ofelia’s mother, his obsession with a male progeny is effectively her undoing. The tree was once a shelter for the magical creatures of the forest, as Ofelia’s mother once was shelter for her. Ofelia’s tasks can be seen both as trials to secure her return to her Faerie kingdom, as well as reflections of the harsh realities she experiences.
Captain Vidal is Del Toro’s gender reversal of the wicked step mother. Marina Warner notes that in many traditional fairy tales “the good mother dies at the beginning of the story” only to be “supplanted by a monster.” Here, the good father is dead, leaving the beast father to fill the void. From his first moment onscreen Vidal expresses an authoritarian patriarchal presence, exuding a classic machismo partnered with the harsh male violence expressed with multiple visual cues: his immaculate fascist military uniform and a damaged pocket watch, allegedly rescued from the field of battle where Vidal’s dying father smashed it, so his son would know the hour of his violent death in combat; Vidal tells his officers that to die in battle is the only real way for a man to die, as he storms confidently into a hail of rebel bullets. His blind confidence that his unborn child is a son bespeaks his utter patriarchy: when the local doctor asks how Vidal can be so certain that the unborn child is a boy, Vidal places a ban on further discussion or inquiry by replying, “Don’t fuck with me.” His obsession with producing a son is nearly thwarted by his own unrestrained violence when he kills the doctor for assisting a tortured prisoner to die, requiring a troop paramedic to preside over the delivery, ostensibly resulting in his wife’s death. This obsession with a male progeny is the true motivation for Vidal’s sexual union with Ofelia’s mother: his appetite is for food and consumption, rather than for sexual contact. Ofelia’s mother is simply another object to devour, like the Tree; once she is used as a vessel for Vidal’s son, she is no longer of use. When it becomes clear that the delivery has gone mortally wrong, Vidal urges the field medic overseeing the birth to save the child at the expense of the mother’s life.
The Pale man is another symbol of the consuming aspect of Vidal’s nature. This sick, albino creature presides over a rich, bountiful feast, but eats only the blood of innocents. Del Toro’s commentary reveals that the geometry of the Pale Man’s dining room is the same as Vidal’s: a long rectangle with a chimney at the back and the monster at the head of the table. Like the Pale Man, Vidal also dines on the blood of innocents. He cuts the people’s rations, supposedly to hurt the rebels, but eats very well himself; in many scenes he savors his hoarded tobacco with almost sexual ecstasy; but this is not a man with sexual appetites. It is true that he has copulated with Ofelia’s mother, but he is more akin to the Grimm Brothers’ Big Bad Wolf, who wishes to eat Little Red Riding Hood, than the wolf of “The Story of Grandmother” who invites the girl to strip before coming to his bed. Vidal is the sort of wolf James McGlathery describes, one who is neither “a prospective suitor, nor even clearly a seducer of maidens as one usually thinks of the matter. His lust for Red Riding Hood’s body is portrayed as gluttony, pure and simple.” The conflation of consumption, of food, tobacco, and drink, as Vidal’s passion throughout the film underscores this idea. This gluttonous obsession proves Vidal’s undoing: in a wonderful use of foreshadowing, Ofelia kills the Monstrous Toad by tricking it into eating magic, disguising them as the pill bugs the monster lives on. This mirrors the end of the film, when Ofelia renders Captain Vidal nearly unconscious by lacing his liquor glass with her deceased mother’s medication, tricking him into drinking it.
These monsters are clearly Vidal’s avatars in Faerie. All of the monsters in Pan’s Labyrinth are blatantly evil, without remorse for their actions. All act from unrestrained appetite: the frog devouring the tree, the Pale Man dining upon the blood of innocents (his skin hangs in flaps, implying that he had once been much larger), and Vidal sucking the vitality out of the people around him. The first two are monstrous in their physical aspect; the Pale Man is especially frightening as he pursues Ofelia down his subterranean corridors, hand stretched in longing, pierced with ocular stigmata, “the better to see you with.” Vidal by comparison is handsome and well-manicured, meticulously grooming himself each morning, never appearing in the presence of his subjects as anything less than the perfectly arrayed military man. His monstrosity is internal, although Mercedes’ mutilation of his face renders it more external for the film’s climactic scenes. An attentive viewer will also note further foreshadowing in the similarity of the Pale Man’s staggering gait and outstretched hand, and Vidal’s drugged pursuit of Ofelia with arm outstretched to aim his pistol.
Vidal’s external brutality proves to be the most horrific in the film, eclipsing any terror either the Monstrous Toad or Pale Man could conjure. Friends avoided seeing the movie based only on descriptions of Vidal bashing in a peasant’s face with a bottle, or performing torture on a captured rebel, (This second atrocity is performed offscreen; the audience only sees the result of Vidal’s labors). “You can either make it spectacle or dramatic,” says Del Toro in the director’s commentary. In film, a cut on the cheek or on the temple has become commonplace enough that it doesn’t even register for the average filmgoer. The mutilation of Vidal’s face by Mercedes, the rebel-sympathizing housekeeper and surrogate caretaker of Ofelia, is the sort of violence that “immediately elicits a reaction.” Del Toro deliberately designed the hyperbolic violence of Pan’s Labyrinth to be “off-putting, rather than spectacular … very harrowing … designed to have an emotional impact.” The only time Del Toro utilizes violence for spectacle is in the scene where the Captain sews his mutilated cheek back together. The camera never turns away from the spectacle of the Captain driving in the needle and pulling it through, over and over, to illustrate how relentless a monster Vidal is: like the Big Bad Wolf (or the Terminator) he will not stop until he is killed.
If the Big Bad Wolf must die to make the horror a fairy tale, so too must Captain Vidal. While the Captain is an imposing onscreen threat, there is no question as to the ultimate outcome. The villain cannot simply die, for the violence must be hyperbolic: the monstrous toad explodes; the Pale Man is left to starve in his lair. Mercedes’ reply to Vidal’s request that his son be told the time and place of his death is, “He will never even know your name.” At the end, the Captain is not merely killed; he is obliterated. Vidal and his avatars receive their “just reward,” as dictated by the tradition of the fairy tale.
To have toned down Vidal and his monstrous twins would be to tone down the layers of menace. Real or imagined, Ofelia’s actions would lose their significance: her rebellious spirit would be nothing more than adolescent acting-out, a temper tantrum rendered fantastic. However, it is the double-resistance of both Ofelia and the rebels in the hills that provide the thematic thrust of Pan’s Labyrinth, the resistance of Fascism in all its forms. Discussion of this film often centers on whether or not Ofelia’s quests into the realm of Faerie are real. Those who conclude she has imagined them conclude her victory is an empty, illusory one. This misses the point entirely.
Real or imagined, Vidal and his avatars are symbols of Fascism, of unrestrained oppression. Ofelia and the rebels in the hills exist to resist. In the smallest action of refusing to call Vidal her father, to the life-risking act of kidnapping her infant brother, Ofelia displays a refusal to be cowed in the face of monstrous evil. This is what Del Toro is concerned with, and it is why his villains are so monstrous. In the world of Pan’s Labyrinth, disobedience is a virtue: when Vidal learns of the Doctor’s betrayal, he is confounded, unable to understand the Doctor’s action. After all, he is the monstrous Vidal. The Doctor knows this man’s reputation—he must realize the consequence of his action. And yet, he calmly replies, “But Captain, to obey – just like that – for obedience’s sake… without questioning… That’s something only people like you do.” And to disobey, to resist the monster, is something only people like Ofelia, Mercedes, and the rebels do. To have them defy anything but a true monster would cheapen their resistance. And this is why, despite the difficulty in witnessing the darkness, the sorrow, and the brutality of Pan’s Labyrinth, I would never trade the Big Bad Wolf of Captain Vidal for the toothless lawn-dogs of Lady in the Water.
Mike Perschon is a hypercreative scholar, musician, writer, and artist, a doctoral student at the University of Alberta, and on the English faculty at Grant MacEwan University.
Embracing the Darkness, Sorrow, and Brutality of Pan’s LabyrinthMike Perschon
Wed May 25, 2011 11:00am
I lost track of how many times I have seen Pan’s Labyrinth while using it as a case study for my Master’s thesis: I watched it at normal speed, on high speed, with commentary, and without; I watched all the DVD extras, then watched them again. After I had defended my thesis, my wife asked me what I wanted to watch. I replied, “One more time, all the way through.” Since then, I’ve viewed it in six different courses as my end-of-term movie (I realize students stop reading several weeks before the end of term, so I prefer to work with that problem, not against it). And when students ask me if I’m tired of watching it, I reply, “No. Every time I watch it, I see something new.”
I’ve met a number of people who cannot imagine someone subjecting themselves to an encore viewing, let alone so many they lose count. These viewers dislike Pan’s Labyrinth for its darkness, for the sorrow and tragedy of its ending. They find the brutality of Captain Vidal abhorrent (and well they should). Like Stephen King, they are terrified by the Pale Man. For many, the film’s darkness overshadows the light; consequently, viewers are often repulsed by it. I love Pan’s Labyrinth for its darkness, sorrow, and brutality. Without those harsh elements the film would be a milquetoast modern fairytale, as tame as The Lady in the Water: a tale of wide-eyed wonder without the wolf.
Fairy tales are often stripped of their darkest and most threatening elements, or transformed into complex morality tales to mirror current values, the victim of an overprotective industry of children’s literature. This is not a new development. To make fairy tales more suitable for young audiences, editors in Victorian England altered the tales, omitting events or elements they deemed too harsh. While many children’s fairy tale collections include a version of Little Red Riding Hood in which the huntsman comes to the rescue before the wolf attacks, the Brothers Grimm’s tale of Little Red Cap describes the “dear little girl whom everyone loved” being “gobbled up” quite suddenly. The wolf eventually meets his demise following an abrupt caesarean section rescue, compounded by a lethal case of massive gall stones courtesy of Little Red Cap, while in another version, Little Red Cap baits the wolf into drowning.
In some modern versions of Little Red Riding Hood, the wolf’s violent demise is replaced by a hasty getaway. Patricia Richards, in an article titled “Don’t Let a Good Scare Frighten You: Choosing and Using Quality Chillers to Promote Reading,” notes that the alteration of the wolf’s fate from execution to evasion is perceived as “less violent and less frightening, but children found it scarier because the threat of the wolf remains unresolved.” Rather than finding gory or horrific details of devoured heroes or drowned villains terrifying, children reported they found “stories with no endings as frightening.”
If ambiguity over the demise of the villain is maintained, then a sense of horror remains. This is a standard trope of the horror movie, utilized for the utilitarian possibility of the money-making sequel, but artistically for a sense of lingering dread. The audience feels a sense of relief when Rachel Keller, the heroine of The Ring seems to have assuaged the vengeance-driven ghost-child Samara; the major-key musical swell tells us they all lived happily-ever-after. This moment is shattered when Rachel returns home to tell her son Aidan all is well, only to have the hollow-eyed Aidan reply, “You weren’t supposed to help her. Don’t you understand, Rachel? She never sleeps.” The ensuing nightmare return of Samara onscreen has become an iconic moment in horror.
As a director, Guillermo Del Toro is well suited to dealing with horror in his fairy tale; his filmography prior to Pan’s Labyrinth, without exception, depicts a struggle between good and evil, from the subtle and nuanced Devil’s Backbone to the comic book morality of Hellboy, to the monstrous villains of Cronos, Blade II, and Mimic.
Captain Vidal, the wicked stepfather of Pan’s Labyrinth, serves both as the real-world, real-life villain within the film’s ontology of Franco’s Spain, and also the cipher by which the monstrosities of faerie can be understood. The two monsters of Pan’s Labyrinth, the Monstrous Toad and the Pale Man, can be read as expressions of Vidal’s monstrosity, viewed through the childsight lens of Faerie. Ofelia’s entrance into the colossal fig tree inhabited by the Monstrous Toad presents a subtle sexual imagery. The entrance to the tree is shaped like a vaginal opening with its curved branches resembling fallopian tubes, a resemblance which Del Toro himself points out in the DVD commentary. The tree’s sickened state mirrors her pregnant mother’s fragile condition, further manifested by a vision of blood-red tendrils creeping across the page of Ofelia’s magic book. This vision occurs immediately prior to Ofelia’s mother’s collapse due to a complication in the pregnancy, as copious amounts of blood run from between her legs.
The connection between the Tree and Ofelia’s mother is overt, and intentional, on Del Toro’s part. These images are symbolic markers for the sexual union between Ofelia’s mother and Vidal. Vidal is the giant toad, who has entered the tree out of lustful appetites, slowly killing the tree through its “insatiable appetite” for the pill bugs within. Vidal is a subtle Bluebeard—while he does not actively cannibalize Ofelia’s mother, his obsession with a male progeny is effectively her undoing. The tree was once a shelter for the magical creatures of the forest, as Ofelia’s mother once was shelter for her. Ofelia’s tasks can be seen both as trials to secure her return to her Faerie kingdom, as well as reflections of the harsh realities she experiences.
Captain Vidal is Del Toro’s gender reversal of the wicked step mother. Marina Warner notes that in many traditional fairy tales “the good mother dies at the beginning of the story” only to be “supplanted by a monster.” Here, the good father is dead, leaving the beast father to fill the void. From his first moment onscreen Vidal expresses an authoritarian patriarchal presence, exuding a classic machismo partnered with the harsh male violence expressed with multiple visual cues: his immaculate fascist military uniform and a damaged pocket watch, allegedly rescued from the field of battle where Vidal’s dying father smashed it, so his son would know the hour of his violent death in combat; Vidal tells his officers that to die in battle is the only real way for a man to die, as he storms confidently into a hail of rebel bullets. His blind confidence that his unborn child is a son bespeaks his utter patriarchy: when the local doctor asks how Vidal can be so certain that the unborn child is a boy, Vidal places a ban on further discussion or inquiry by replying, “Don’t fuck with me.” His obsession with producing a son is nearly thwarted by his own unrestrained violence when he kills the doctor for assisting a tortured prisoner to die, requiring a troop paramedic to preside over the delivery, ostensibly resulting in his wife’s death. This obsession with a male progeny is the true motivation for Vidal’s sexual union with Ofelia’s mother: his appetite is for food and consumption, rather than for sexual contact. Ofelia’s mother is simply another object to devour, like the Tree; once she is used as a vessel for Vidal’s son, she is no longer of use. When it becomes clear that the delivery has gone mortally wrong, Vidal urges the field medic overseeing the birth to save the child at the expense of the mother’s life.
The Pale man is another symbol of the consuming aspect of Vidal’s nature. This sick, albino creature presides over a rich, bountiful feast, but eats only the blood of innocents. Del Toro’s commentary reveals that the geometry of the Pale Man’s dining room is the same as Vidal’s: a long rectangle with a chimney at the back and the monster at the head of the table. Like the Pale Man, Vidal also dines on the blood of innocents. He cuts the people’s rations, supposedly to hurt the rebels, but eats very well himself; in many scenes he savors his hoarded tobacco with almost sexual ecstasy; but this is not a man with sexual appetites. It is true that he has copulated with Ofelia’s mother, but he is more akin to the Grimm Brothers’ Big Bad Wolf, who wishes to eat Little Red Riding Hood, than the wolf of “The Story of Grandmother” who invites the girl to strip before coming to his bed. Vidal is the sort of wolf James McGlathery describes, one who is neither “a prospective suitor, nor even clearly a seducer of maidens as one usually thinks of the matter. His lust for Red Riding Hood’s body is portrayed as gluttony, pure and simple.” The conflation of consumption, of food, tobacco, and drink, as Vidal’s passion throughout the film underscores this idea. This gluttonous obsession proves Vidal’s undoing: in a wonderful use of foreshadowing, Ofelia kills the Monstrous Toad by tricking it into eating magic, disguising them as the pill bugs the monster lives on. This mirrors the end of the film, when Ofelia renders Captain Vidal nearly unconscious by lacing his liquor glass with her deceased mother’s medication, tricking him into drinking it.
These monsters are clearly Vidal’s avatars in Faerie. All of the monsters in Pan’s Labyrinth are blatantly evil, without remorse for their actions. All act from unrestrained appetite: the frog devouring the tree, the Pale Man dining upon the blood of innocents (his skin hangs in flaps, implying that he had once been much larger), and Vidal sucking the vitality out of the people around him. The first two are monstrous in their physical aspect; the Pale Man is especially frightening as he pursues Ofelia down his subterranean corridors, hand stretched in longing, pierced with ocular stigmata, “the better to see you with.” Vidal by comparison is handsome and well-manicured, meticulously grooming himself each morning, never appearing in the presence of his subjects as anything less than the perfectly arrayed military man. His monstrosity is internal, although Mercedes’ mutilation of his face renders it more external for the film’s climactic scenes. An attentive viewer will also note further foreshadowing in the similarity of the Pale Man’s staggering gait and outstretched hand, and Vidal’s drugged pursuit of Ofelia with arm outstretched to aim his pistol.
Vidal’s external brutality proves to be the most horrific in the film, eclipsing any terror either the Monstrous Toad or Pale Man could conjure. Friends avoided seeing the movie based only on descriptions of Vidal bashing in a peasant’s face with a bottle, or performing torture on a captured rebel, (This second atrocity is performed offscreen; the audience only sees the result of Vidal’s labors). “You can either make it spectacle or dramatic,” says Del Toro in the director’s commentary. In film, a cut on the cheek or on the temple has become commonplace enough that it doesn’t even register for the average filmgoer. The mutilation of Vidal’s face by Mercedes, the rebel-sympathizing housekeeper and surrogate caretaker of Ofelia, is the sort of violence that “immediately elicits a reaction.” Del Toro deliberately designed the hyperbolic violence of Pan’s Labyrinth to be “off-putting, rather than spectacular … very harrowing … designed to have an emotional impact.” The only time Del Toro utilizes violence for spectacle is in the scene where the Captain sews his mutilated cheek back together. The camera never turns away from the spectacle of the Captain driving in the needle and pulling it through, over and over, to illustrate how relentless a monster Vidal is: like the Big Bad Wolf (or the Terminator) he will not stop until he is killed.
If the Big Bad Wolf must die to make the horror a fairy tale, so too must Captain Vidal. While the Captain is an imposing onscreen threat, there is no question as to the ultimate outcome. The villain cannot simply die, for the violence must be hyperbolic: the monstrous toad explodes; the Pale Man is left to starve in his lair. Mercedes’ reply to Vidal’s request that his son be told the time and place of his death is, “He will never even know your name.” At the end, the Captain is not merely killed; he is obliterated. Vidal and his avatars receive their “just reward,” as dictated by the tradition of the fairy tale.
To have toned down Vidal and his monstrous twins would be to tone down the layers of menace. Real or imagined, Ofelia’s actions would lose their significance: her rebellious spirit would be nothing more than adolescent acting-out, a temper tantrum rendered fantastic. However, it is the double-resistance of both Ofelia and the rebels in the hills that provide the thematic thrust of Pan’s Labyrinth, the resistance of Fascism in all its forms. Discussion of this film often centers on whether or not Ofelia’s quests into the realm of Faerie are real. Those who conclude she has imagined them conclude her victory is an empty, illusory one. This misses the point entirely.
Real or imagined, Vidal and his avatars are symbols of Fascism, of unrestrained oppression. Ofelia and the rebels in the hills exist to resist. In the smallest action of refusing to call Vidal her father, to the life-risking act of kidnapping her infant brother, Ofelia displays a refusal to be cowed in the face of monstrous evil. This is what Del Toro is concerned with, and it is why his villains are so monstrous. In the world of Pan’s Labyrinth, disobedience is a virtue: when Vidal learns of the Doctor’s betrayal, he is confounded, unable to understand the Doctor’s action. After all, he is the monstrous Vidal. The Doctor knows this man’s reputation—he must realize the consequence of his action. And yet, he calmly replies, “But Captain, to obey – just like that – for obedience’s sake… without questioning… That’s something only people like you do.” And to disobey, to resist the monster, is something only people like Ofelia, Mercedes, and the rebels do. To have them defy anything but a true monster would cheapen their resistance. And this is why, despite the difficulty in witnessing the darkness, the sorrow, and the brutality of Pan’s Labyrinth, I would never trade the Big Bad Wolf of Captain Vidal for the toothless lawn-dogs of Lady in the Water.
Mike Perschon is a hypercreative scholar, musician, writer, and artist, a doctoral student at the University of Alberta, and on the English faculty at Grant MacEwan University.
Pan’s Labyrinth – analysis of the film Essay
Being a piece with simplicity at its peak, the film Pan’s Labyrinth narrates the story of a young woman called Ofelia and the extraordinary acquaintance between her and the astounding faun. The film is made and composed by Mexican auteur Guillermo del Toro, set in Spain 1944, a time in which the rightist Franco organization was up and running. The faun assumes that Ofelia is the revived soul of his princess who used to live in the Underworld before her destruction. He gives her three errands to complete to choose if her encapsulation is set up and her soul is meriting returning to its genuine home.
Pan’s Labyrinth film analysis suggests that it takes after the rules and customs that Vladimir Propp laid out as touchstones that must be hit in order to be viewed as a traditional tale. The control of three being an instance of this (in fanciful stories the number three rehashes frequently and is managed like a charm number). Del Toro, to pay tribute to this, litters his movie with various instances of the charm three: Ofelia must complete three endeavours beforehand returning to her genuine home, three imps coordinate Ofelia on her excursion, the Pale Man’s haven has three rooms, et cetera. Some are clear like the above recorded, while others are straightforward and complex in the way they’re facilitated into the film. Likewise, every one of the three central female character’s (Ofelia, Carmen and Mercedes) relationship with Vidal can be viewed as the three responses to a rightist organization. Carmen’s weak affirmation, Ofelia’s made light of resistance and Mercedes’ outright security of Vidal’s conviction frameworks and all that he stays for.
The inescapable demolish of Vidal feels inside and out satisfying and pushed. Prior to the complete of the film it isn’t adequate for Vidal to simply fail horrendously as he has completed an unreasonable number of really disgusting speaks to it to be that clear. He ought to be totally devastated. Vidal requests that his tyke be told the period of his passing however Mercedes’ simply answers that: ‘He will never anytime know your name’ before her kin shoots him. As coordinated by the custom of the kids’ story the scalawag is vanquished.
Different characters encounter physical changes over the traverse of the film. Vidal starts off impeccably arranged, hair slicked to perfection, the model pioneer and depiction of the new rightist organization. Despite he shuts the film physically scarred, calmed and wavering about after Ofelia in a way like the frightening Pale man progression.
The faun similarly transforms, he begins uncommonly old and it requires a huge amount of effort for him to move. With each ensuing knowledge he looks more young, all the more physically fit and in a way more amazing which contrasts and his verifiably insidious and distrustful lead.
The fantasy and fanciful story grouping are not by any methods the main customs that Pan’s Labyrinth must hold quick to. As it is a part film, there are guidelines of screenwriting that must be taken after while making the story. Maybe the most basic things to be checked are the destinations, the stakes and the genuineness.
Without a sensible goal a legend isn’t intriguing, or significantly more repulsive, debilitating and standoffish. Ofelia hysterically needs to escape from her present life and return to the Underworld where she believes she truly has a place.
The stakes are strengthened by inquisitive in the matter of whether the saint doesn’t achieve their target. The more noteworthy you make the options and the setbacks infers the stakes will be higher and in this manner a moreover fascinating story will be told. If Ofelia tumbles in her target then she should live in fear and mistreatment of a naughty man who has assaulted his way into her family.
The criticalness is so urgent and Ofelia has only two weeks to complete the endeavours the faun sets her. By setting such a brief period assignment, the likelihood of Ofelia completing these errands and achieving her goal is nearly nothing and everything thought about ends up being more extraordinary and persuading to watch. If there was no criticalness in completing the assignments and Ofelia had as long as she required then the story would persist tremendously.
Del Toro, as both the motion pictures creator and official can infuse various visual topics and enhance his story through gifted camera work. Vidal is much of the time shot in light, however the faun and his labyrinth are tossed in shadow, as is Ofelia usually. This contentions with various model standards of silver screen; it pivots our wants and shows us to not be so suspicious of the dimness and the world it has, as it’s this present reality, in all its amazing greatness that is the hurt one.
There is an undaunted viewpoint of viciousness in this film despite the way that the most dreadful show of mercilessness, the torment of the wavering progressive by Vidal, is never showed up. This makes the scene fundamentally moreover disturbing in light of the way that we simply watch the aftereffect of Vidal’s deeds. It is surrendered over to the gatherings of spectators to imagine what it was he did to him.
Del Toro gave cautious thought to his encompassing and impeding in particular scenes. Vidal, much the same as the Pale man, has a bottomless appetite for food, drinking and smoking. This was all deliberate by Del Toro to make the two opponents of each one of Ofelia’s universes (this present reality and the Underworld) mirror each other.
Compartment’s Labyrinth has a strong theme that resounds all through the film. It is the likelihood of devotion versus resistance; paying little heed to whether you should capriciously take after standards or question them and progressive against it. The landscape of this story including the rightist organization offers various opportunities to mine dispute which is major in making performance. In one of the essential scenes, when Carmen and Ofelia meet Vidal, Del Toro demonstrates us two confining considerations: Carmen obeys Vidal, Ofelia does not. She stretches out her left hand, and even after he points out.
It’s the wrong hand, she says nothing and doesn’t offer him her right hand. Starting at now, this privilege on time into the film, we can see the complexity among Ofelia and her mother and get a more conspicuous appreciation into the sort of individual Ofelia is. Vidal believes in unpredictably agreeing to the levels of initiative.
The master training him:
‘To obey without instinct just like that". Well – that is something just people like you can do’ genuinely totals up the entire subject in one sentence.
Carmen obeyed Vidal and demolished the mandrake root that was keeping her alive. By unpredictably obeying Vidal she unexpectedly caused her own passing. Ofelia is interesting in any case, by opposing Vidal and the faun and sticking to what she acknowledges is right and not what a higher power encourages her to do is the thing that thinks of her as soul meriting returning to the Underworld.
Guillermo Del Toro’s film stands isolated in this manner a splendid and resuscitating elucidation of the commendable tale story. So much care and thought was spent making the story and making the characters into people we would pull for, or for Vidal’s circumstance really severely dislike, that they feel certifiable to us. The film has huge amounts of subtext and significance that when inspected is seen as a model kids’ story that feels fresh, a diminish dream that we wish to set out in and a phenomenal consistent with life experience.
Pan’s Labyrinth – analysis of the film. (2018, May 22). Retrieved from https://primetimeessay.com/pans-labyrinth-analysis-of-the-film/
Being a piece with simplicity at its peak, the film Pan’s Labyrinth narrates the story of a young woman called Ofelia and the extraordinary acquaintance between her and the astounding faun. The film is made and composed by Mexican auteur Guillermo del Toro, set in Spain 1944, a time in which the rightist Franco organization was up and running. The faun assumes that Ofelia is the revived soul of his princess who used to live in the Underworld before her destruction. He gives her three errands to complete to choose if her encapsulation is set up and her soul is meriting returning to its genuine home.
Pan’s Labyrinth film analysis suggests that it takes after the rules and customs that Vladimir Propp laid out as touchstones that must be hit in order to be viewed as a traditional tale. The control of three being an instance of this (in fanciful stories the number three rehashes frequently and is managed like a charm number). Del Toro, to pay tribute to this, litters his movie with various instances of the charm three: Ofelia must complete three endeavours beforehand returning to her genuine home, three imps coordinate Ofelia on her excursion, the Pale Man’s haven has three rooms, et cetera. Some are clear like the above recorded, while others are straightforward and complex in the way they’re facilitated into the film. Likewise, every one of the three central female character’s (Ofelia, Carmen and Mercedes) relationship with Vidal can be viewed as the three responses to a rightist organization. Carmen’s weak affirmation, Ofelia’s made light of resistance and Mercedes’ outright security of Vidal’s conviction frameworks and all that he stays for.
The inescapable demolish of Vidal feels inside and out satisfying and pushed. Prior to the complete of the film it isn’t adequate for Vidal to simply fail horrendously as he has completed an unreasonable number of really disgusting speaks to it to be that clear. He ought to be totally devastated. Vidal requests that his tyke be told the period of his passing however Mercedes’ simply answers that: ‘He will never anytime know your name’ before her kin shoots him. As coordinated by the custom of the kids’ story the scalawag is vanquished.
Different characters encounter physical changes over the traverse of the film. Vidal starts off impeccably arranged, hair slicked to perfection, the model pioneer and depiction of the new rightist organization. Despite he shuts the film physically scarred, calmed and wavering about after Ofelia in a way like the frightening Pale man progression.
The faun similarly transforms, he begins uncommonly old and it requires a huge amount of effort for him to move. With each ensuing knowledge he looks more young, all the more physically fit and in a way more amazing which contrasts and his verifiably insidious and distrustful lead.
The fantasy and fanciful story grouping are not by any methods the main customs that Pan’s Labyrinth must hold quick to. As it is a part film, there are guidelines of screenwriting that must be taken after while making the story. Maybe the most basic things to be checked are the destinations, the stakes and the genuineness.
Without a sensible goal a legend isn’t intriguing, or significantly more repulsive, debilitating and standoffish. Ofelia hysterically needs to escape from her present life and return to the Underworld where she believes she truly has a place.
The stakes are strengthened by inquisitive in the matter of whether the saint doesn’t achieve their target. The more noteworthy you make the options and the setbacks infers the stakes will be higher and in this manner a moreover fascinating story will be told. If Ofelia tumbles in her target then she should live in fear and mistreatment of a naughty man who has assaulted his way into her family.
The criticalness is so urgent and Ofelia has only two weeks to complete the endeavours the faun sets her. By setting such a brief period assignment, the likelihood of Ofelia completing these errands and achieving her goal is nearly nothing and everything thought about ends up being more extraordinary and persuading to watch. If there was no criticalness in completing the assignments and Ofelia had as long as she required then the story would persist tremendously.
Del Toro, as both the motion pictures creator and official can infuse various visual topics and enhance his story through gifted camera work. Vidal is much of the time shot in light, however the faun and his labyrinth are tossed in shadow, as is Ofelia usually. This contentions with various model standards of silver screen; it pivots our wants and shows us to not be so suspicious of the dimness and the world it has, as it’s this present reality, in all its amazing greatness that is the hurt one.
There is an undaunted viewpoint of viciousness in this film despite the way that the most dreadful show of mercilessness, the torment of the wavering progressive by Vidal, is never showed up. This makes the scene fundamentally moreover disturbing in light of the way that we simply watch the aftereffect of Vidal’s deeds. It is surrendered over to the gatherings of spectators to imagine what it was he did to him.
Del Toro gave cautious thought to his encompassing and impeding in particular scenes. Vidal, much the same as the Pale man, has a bottomless appetite for food, drinking and smoking. This was all deliberate by Del Toro to make the two opponents of each one of Ofelia’s universes (this present reality and the Underworld) mirror each other.
Compartment’s Labyrinth has a strong theme that resounds all through the film. It is the likelihood of devotion versus resistance; paying little heed to whether you should capriciously take after standards or question them and progressive against it. The landscape of this story including the rightist organization offers various opportunities to mine dispute which is major in making performance. In one of the essential scenes, when Carmen and Ofelia meet Vidal, Del Toro demonstrates us two confining considerations: Carmen obeys Vidal, Ofelia does not. She stretches out her left hand, and even after he points out.
It’s the wrong hand, she says nothing and doesn’t offer him her right hand. Starting at now, this privilege on time into the film, we can see the complexity among Ofelia and her mother and get a more conspicuous appreciation into the sort of individual Ofelia is. Vidal believes in unpredictably agreeing to the levels of initiative.
The master training him:
‘To obey without instinct just like that". Well – that is something just people like you can do’ genuinely totals up the entire subject in one sentence.
Carmen obeyed Vidal and demolished the mandrake root that was keeping her alive. By unpredictably obeying Vidal she unexpectedly caused her own passing. Ofelia is interesting in any case, by opposing Vidal and the faun and sticking to what she acknowledges is right and not what a higher power encourages her to do is the thing that thinks of her as soul meriting returning to the Underworld.
Guillermo Del Toro’s film stands isolated in this manner a splendid and resuscitating elucidation of the commendable tale story. So much care and thought was spent making the story and making the characters into people we would pull for, or for Vidal’s circumstance really severely dislike, that they feel certifiable to us. The film has huge amounts of subtext and significance that when inspected is seen as a model kids’ story that feels fresh, a diminish dream that we wish to set out in and a phenomenal consistent with life experience.
Pan’s Labyrinth – analysis of the film. (2018, May 22). Retrieved from https://primetimeessay.com/pans-labyrinth-analysis-of-the-film/
The Story of the Rose
The Sweet Smell of…Defeat
Roses sure have come to symbolize a lot in modern western culture. But the symbolism associated with roses tends to focus on their beauty: roses mean love, or friendship, or youth. People seem content to focus on their pretty petals…and total disregard those nasty thorns.
Ha. Not Ofelia's rose:
OFELIA: A long, long time ago in a grey sad country there was a magic rose that made whoever plucked it immortal. But no one would dare go near it because its thorns were full of mortal poison. So amongst the men tales of pain and death were told in hushed voices. But there was no talk of eternal life for men fear pain more than they want immortality. So every day the rose wilted, unable to bequeath its gift to anyone. Alone and forgotten at the top of that mountain…forgotten until the end of time. This rose might offer eternal life, but it's thorny and poisonous mountain promises enough pain that men (who seem to always be seeking immortality: from the Fountain of Youth to cryogenic freezing to Botox) won't even go near it.
So what does this mean?
The rose, which is often a feminine symbol, could represent Ofelia's potential journey to adulthood. But Ofelia's journey into adolescence is fraught with pain and fear—she doesn't want to attain a womanhood like shared by Mercedes and Carmen. The rose's thorns are doing symbolic double-duty: they both represent the scary physical changes like puberty (specifically menstruation), and men, who pollute the world of women with war and misogyny
But Ofelia never makes this journey. She never gets the chance. And while she's alive she spends her time running in the opposite direction of adulthood—back into the innocence with which she was born, an innocence alluded to by the narrator's description of the pain- and lie-free Underground Realm.
The Sweet Smell of…Defeat
Roses sure have come to symbolize a lot in modern western culture. But the symbolism associated with roses tends to focus on their beauty: roses mean love, or friendship, or youth. People seem content to focus on their pretty petals…and total disregard those nasty thorns.
Ha. Not Ofelia's rose:
OFELIA: A long, long time ago in a grey sad country there was a magic rose that made whoever plucked it immortal. But no one would dare go near it because its thorns were full of mortal poison. So amongst the men tales of pain and death were told in hushed voices. But there was no talk of eternal life for men fear pain more than they want immortality. So every day the rose wilted, unable to bequeath its gift to anyone. Alone and forgotten at the top of that mountain…forgotten until the end of time. This rose might offer eternal life, but it's thorny and poisonous mountain promises enough pain that men (who seem to always be seeking immortality: from the Fountain of Youth to cryogenic freezing to Botox) won't even go near it.
So what does this mean?
The rose, which is often a feminine symbol, could represent Ofelia's potential journey to adulthood. But Ofelia's journey into adolescence is fraught with pain and fear—she doesn't want to attain a womanhood like shared by Mercedes and Carmen. The rose's thorns are doing symbolic double-duty: they both represent the scary physical changes like puberty (specifically menstruation), and men, who pollute the world of women with war and misogyny
But Ofelia never makes this journey. She never gets the chance. And while she's alive she spends her time running in the opposite direction of adulthood—back into the innocence with which she was born, an innocence alluded to by the narrator's description of the pain- and lie-free Underground Realm.
Heroes Journey
Ordinary World
Ordinary life for Ofelia isn't so hot. In fact, it's pretty frigid. Having just moved to Vidal's estate with her mother, Ofelia is feeling frightened by all the change, the scary night-time sounds, and especially her intimidating stepfather.
Besides, in the ordinary world she's supposed to just stay out of the way and wear pretty dresses. It doesn't sound like much fun.
Call To Adventure
Ofelia's call to adventure comes in the form of a fairy, which in turn comes in the form of a bug. Seeing the magical being transform from hideous to cute in front of her, she can't help but follow it as it leads her outside of the house and into the night.
Refusal Of The Call
Ofelia never really refuses the call. In fact, quite the opposite is true: she's drawn toward it.
Actually, it may be the case that the call to adventure is of her own devising; she wants to escape the ordinary world and, despite the dangers of the creepy labyrinth, she never turns back.
Meeting The Mentor
Well, to say the Faun is a mentor is stretching things a bit. Specifically, it's stretching the idea that the mentor is always an 100% pleasant figure.
At times he seems sweet and nurturing and at other times we're just positive he's out to get her. Either way, it's the Faun who gives her the book and helps guide her through the tasks that lead her back to her true home—even if he is a bit hard on her at times.
Crossing The Threshold
Ofelia crosses the threshold when she accepts the book from the Faun and begins her first task. This is when she officially leaves the mortal realm and enters the world of the fantastical, though it may not be everything she expected.
Tests, Allies, Enemies
Ofelia's tests are super straightforward, in typical fairytale fashion. In typical fairytale fashion, they're basically described as, well, tests.
She has to feed three magic stones to the toad, take the dagger from the room with the Pale Man, and bring her brother to the Labyrinth so innocent blood can be spilled. Of course, after the toad things get a bit complicated, but we'll get there in a moment.
This stage also takes place in part in the real world, as Ofelia learns she can trust Mercedes and the Doctor. She learns their secret but doesn't say anything.
Approach To The Inmost Cave
The Pale Man trial is Ofelia's approach to the cave. It would have been easy if it weren't for those delicious looking grapes and the fact that Ofelia was too hangry to resist them.
But when the Faun finds out that she touched the food and two of his fairies were eaten, he ends her tests and tells her she has just lost her chance of becoming the princess she was and re-joining her immortal family.
Ordeal
Ofelia's ordeal is her mother's death. And it doesn't get much worse than that for an eleven-year-old kid.
After the destruction of the mandrake, which her mother throws into the fire, she has a difficult pregnancy and passes away. Now Ofelia just has her infant brother and terrifying stepfather at the estate. This ordeal doesn't strengthen her, it just pushes her down further in defeat: a real world tragedy to match her fairy world failure.
Reward (Seizing The Sword)Ofelia's reward—not for failing with the mandrake root or the Pale Man, but for trusting Mercedes—is a chance to flee the estate for good and go live with the rebels. One night, Mercedes grabs her and the two begin to sneak out of the compound in the rain.
The Road Back
This road back is not a pleasant one. Ofelia and Mercedes are discovered by Vidal who brings them back inside the compound. But in her room, Ofelia gets a final chance at redemption: she just needs to bring her brother to the Faun in the labyrinth, evading her drugged, wounded stepfather along the way.
Resurrection
Ofelia appears with her brother in the labyrinth, but when she learns what the Faun wants to do with him (hint: it involves a knife and rhymes with "crab"), she refuses to let his blood be spilled. This is actually the test, and Ofelia passes.
Unfortunately, Vidal catches up to her and, after taking his son, shoots her and kills her.
Return With The Elixir
Ofelia's elixir is twofold. As Vidal exits the labyrinth he's surrounded by the rebels who take his son, making Ofelia's brother safe from his evil father. Ofelia herself is transported into the fairy realm, even as her real-world body bleeds out on the ground of the labyrinth.
Travelling with Transitions
In a film that cuts back and forth between different worlds, the types of transition are obviously going to be key.
Let's start with the first notable transition we get hit with right from the start. Our first image is of a dying Ofelia, lying on the ground. As we move closer to her face and see the blood is actually returning to her, we end up zooming all the way in through her eye and into the Underground Realm.
We're essentially entering Ofelia's body: we're going into her world—a world of fantasy and war—to experience her story. We can see the Faun because Ofelia can see the Faun as we travel through her eye and gain her perspective.
Then there's a more subtle transition between Ofelia's story of the rose (which ends with her talking about its promise of eternal life), and the following scene in which we see Vidal winding his father's watch that doesn't work. Just like the immortality offered by the rose, Vidal's father has created a way to immortalize himself through his legacy of the watch and through his son's obsession with it.
There're plenty of other interesting transitions, like the one from Ofelia carrying her key to the Faun to the shot of Vidal using the storeroom key to give out rations. Or the cut from the beginning of Ferreiro's amputation to the shot of Ofelia pulling out the Book of Crossroads.
Then there are the series of vertical and horizontal wipes used to transition between the fantasy and human world. We can see this in an upward wipe as we move from Ofelia in the bathtub to Ofelia in the labyrinth.
We also see it in the parallel scenes of Ofelia and the soldiers traveling through the woods, where a tree is used to wipe between the two scenes. These wipes create a sense of closeness, a proximity between both worlds that suggests they're intertwined with one another.
Genre
Fantasy
Just to clear the air here: Fauns aren't real. Neither are fairies, or giant toads, or pale men with hands for eyes that eat children (phew, we were a little worried about that one).
That's right; in Pan's Labyrinth we've entered the realm of the unreal…which can only mean we're in a fantasy. No, there aren't any high elves or dark elves or rings of power, but the creatures in the film are fantastical beings. They're creatures that fit within the context of Ofelia's world but that appear as mere stories or childish imagination to adults like Mercedes and Carmen.
And that's the key, a fantasy may have hyper-real creatures or abilities that defy the laws of nature, but they're always human stories, written for humans about the human experience. The creatures in this fantasy are all representative of Ofelia and her life in the human world.
Fable
But Pan's Labyrinth is more than just your normal fantasy adventure-type story. It's also a fable.
Fables are an age-old genre, generally told to children, which are used to teach some kind of moral or lesson at the end. Pan's Labyrinth has a sense of black and white morality: the purely good Ferreiro and Mercedes against the evil Vidal.
War
If we zoom out from Ofelia's story, we'll see that the bigger picture is the battle between the Falangist supporters of Spain's new government and the rebels continuing to fight against them.
It might be easy to dismiss this, saying that del Toro just needed a dramatic environment to force Ofelia to escape into her fantasy realm, but there are just too many parallels to ignore the importance of what is happening in the violent world of the adults.
Pan's Labyrinth is a story of war told through the eyes of an eleven-year-old girl who battles the evils of her fantasy world…even as the rebels fight similar battles in the historical world of 1944 Spain.
https://www.shmoop.com/pans-labyrinth/genre.html