Pan’s Labyrinth “El Laberinto del Fauno”
In the history of cinema, fairytale movies have been traditionally light in terms of portraying characters as overtly frightening or violent. Viewers used to these conventions of the genre will find the use of horrifying imagery in this film shocking. I watched this movie few years ago because I am somehow attracted to the rich mythological background and strange fantasy world of this movie. This movie is worth watching and also confusing which leave you speechless at the end but after you pay more attention the second time you watch, you might learn a lot from this movie. I might left out a lot of mysteries about this movie but these what I learnt. Pan’s Labyrinth, which originally known as “El Laberinto del Fauno” in Spanish is a 2006 Spanish-Mexican film which is both a war and in part a dark fantasy movie written and directed by a Mexican filmmaker Guillermo del Toro. The idea for Pan's Labyrinth came from Guillermo del Toro's notebooks, which he says are filled with doodles, ideas, drawings and plot bits. He had been keeping these notebooks for twenty years. Del Toro got the idea of the faun from childhood experiences with "lucid dreaming". He stated on The Charlie Rose Show that every midnight, he would wake up, and a faun would gradually step out from behind the grandfather's clock which was quite creepy.
Originally the story was about a married pregnant woman who meets the Faun in the labyrinth, falls in love with him, and lets him sacrifice her baby on faith that she, the baby, and the Faun will all be together in the afterlife and the labyrinth will thrive again. "It was a shocking tale," Del Toro.
The story takes place in 1944 in the post-Civil War in Spain, a girl named Ofelia, fascinated with fairy-tales is sent along with her pregnant mother named Carmen, to live with her new stepfather, a ruthless captain of Spanish army, called Captain Vidal. During the night, she meets a fairy who takes her to an old faun in the center of the labyrinth. He tells her that she’s a princess, but must prove her royalty by surviving three gruesome tasks. If she fails, she will never prove herself to be the true princess and will never see her real father, the king of the Underworld, again.
The main character of Pan’s Labyrinth is the little girl called Ofelia. She was actually Princess Moanna, whose father is the king of the Underworld, before she visits the human world due to her curiosity. That is when the sunlight blinds her and erases her memory. She becomes mortal and dies but the king, her father, believes that eventually her spirit will return to the underworld so he builds labyrinths around the world in preparation for her return. She became the daughter of Captain Vidal, who believes strongly in fascism and was assigned to root out any anti-fascist rebels, after the death of her real father in the war.
Captain Vidal is the main antagonist of this movie. As the son of a famed commander with the same name who died in Morocco, Captain Vidal was a sadistic and ruthless madman who killed, tortured and defiled for sheer enjoyment or revenge. He is obsessed with fathering a son and he cared little for anyone or anything. He had no compassion for human life and was depicted as a force of great evil. 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, “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 common enough.
The art movement related to this movie is kitsch which means tackiness and cheesiness. Kitsch art is closely associated with sentimental art because of its humorous and ironic nature. For example, the structure of the faun, it is a mythical creature that is half goat and half human and is known for being linked to some variation of enchantment. Fauns are thought to be full of trickery and mischief like the one in “Hercules” however, the faun in Pan’s Labyrinth is indeed half man half goat but his appearance is largely exaggerated to somewhat horrifying standards. He is larger than a generic faun and has many disturbing attributes such as long thin fingers, enormous horns, and sometimes milk white eyes. The faun’s role in Pan’s Labyrinth is an extremely crucial one in which he acts as a guide for Ofelia who is believed to be the lost Princess Moanna of the underworld. He gives her three tasks which she must complete in order to determine her royalty and therefore whether or not she can return to the underworld. This tale is very dark as most fairy tales originated and there are many occasions where I questioned the faun’s true intent. Regardless of his monster like appearance, the faun is indeed helping Ofelia return to her true home while the actual monster of the story is the Captain Vidal who proves himself to be more ruthless and murderous then any mystical creature they encounter. The faun, is the most thought provoking character in the film as he makes viewers question whether he is an enchanted guide or a monster.
The faun luring Ofelia to give him her baby brother as a pure sacrifice for the final task.
The faun in Pan’s Labyrinth tells me a lot about being human. As Ofelia’s guide, he assigns three tasks for her to complete that test her self-control, bravery and compassion. Ofelia’s willingness to trust such a frightening creature also puts me in a position to question why they do and don’t trust certain people, the idea of “don’t judge a book by its cover” is touched on. The concept of the faun being helpful and the Captain being the “monster” gives the story a twist that makes me think. The final task Ofelia is given by the faun also teaches us about being human. The task tests Ofelia’s compassion when the faun asks her to spill the blood of an innocent. This is a test of course to determine whether Ofelia is willing to hurt her baby brother for a chance to escape her horrifying reality. Viewers are made to question whether they would bring harm to another in order to benefit themselves. Despite the faun being a clearly mythical creature, he has the ability to determine what human’s weakness and strengths are and test the Ofelia on those qualities.
According to Guillermo del Toro, “the faun is a creature that is neither good or evil, like nature, character there to be witness and shepherd Ofelia in a right of passage, but he has no agenda. He doesn’t care if she dies or lives.”
It is strongly implied that the faun lusts after Princess Moanna, Ofelia. When Ofelia completes her first task, she reunites with the faun in the labyrinth, where she notices a statue of a faun, a woman and a baby. He assumed that it was him and her which left me thinking, is the baby theirs too? If it is true, either the faun and Princess Moaana were lovers in the underworld and raised a child, or the faun can predict the future and knows that Ofelia is destined to meet him in the labyrinth.
The statue in the labyrinth.
The faun is also incorporated into the architecture. If you paid attention and look closely at the banister in the Captain's mansion, you'll see the Faun's head in the design. It's a subtle reinforcement of the idea that the fantasy world is bleeding into the real one. The faun architecture is not only seen in the mansion but also at the entrance of the maze into the labyrinth.
The entrance to the labyrinth.
The Faun’s architecture on the banister in the Captain’s mansion.
Ofelia placing back the faun’s missing eye.
At the beginning of the movie, Ofelia is lead to a mysterious monument depicting the faun with a missing eye. She finds the missing eye and places it back into its socket. A magical insect suddenly appears which means Ofelia’s magical quest has begun. There is a great importance placed on eyes and sight in the movie and this scene tells the viewers, right from the start, that Ofelia’s quest is occult in nature as not many have the “eyes to see” the invisible world she is about to experience.
Captain Vidal cursing at Ofelia.
Cronus devouring her child by Goya.
Once Ofelia has arrived at the war camp, she meets with her new step-father, the cruel and sadistic Captain Vidal. The character is a representation of Spanish Fascism which is known as the “Cronus Complex”, Cronus being the Greek mythological figure representing time, death and harvesting.
“The Cronus Complex is not a murderous tendency per say, since Cronus did not just got rid of his offspring, but a destructive ingestive process which hinders the child’s capacity to exist separately and autonomously from the parent. In consuming his child, Cronus does not only aim to annihilate him but does so by making him part of himself. According to Bolen, since ancient times, the Cronus Complex is a tendency through which male oriented cultures have maintained power. That is evident is systems such as Fascism, one of the most radical mutations of patriarchy.” – John W. Crandall, The Cronus Complex
When I found this while doing my research, it was quite fascinating and creepy at the same time that I thought this movie contains a lot of relatable and hidden messages which leads the viewers confuse and started to interpret everything about it.
The first task given by the Faun to Ofelia is to retrieve a key from a giant toad who is sucking the life out of an ancient fig tree. There starts the quest of “returning to the womb” and the rekindling the oppressed feminine. The interior of the tree is damp and moist, symbolizing once again the womb-giver of life. The tree itself looks like a uterus. Ofelia’s trauma with the feminine principle is expressed many times in the movie, because of her weak, pregnant mother who ultimately has to give up her life to give birth. In one disturbing scene, Ofelia sees in her Book of the Crossroads, the outline of a uterus that becomes red, predicting her mother’s complications.
Ofelia wearing an outfit which is almost similar to the dress of Alice in Wonderland. Also, a picture of a uterus which looks like the fig tree beside.
Book of the Crossroads, the outline of a uterus that becomes red, predicting Ofelia’s mother’s complications.
The second task is to retrieve a dagger from the Pale Man. The Pale Man is a big flabby skin creature sitting in front of a great feast. Del Toro originally designed the Pale Man like an old man who lost a lot of weight. Later he had the face removed and put his eyes on a platter, which was as del Toro had once seen a statue of St. Lucy, with her eyes on a platter and blood pouring out of her sockets. The director wanted a "church-like and a concentration camp feeling, with shoes piled up in corner; this perverse creature has a lot of food in front of it, but only eats children--innocents." Looking around, Ofelia sees stacks of shoes and depictions of the Pale Man eating children, which is, once again reminiscent of Goya’s depiction of Cronus. The Pale Man is a gruesome representation of the oppressive powers of Ofelia’s world – Captain Vidal, Spanish Fascism and the Catholic Church. To further this comparison, a scene of Vidal having dinner with his guests, including a Catholic priest, is shown in parallel, in which nobody dares to question the Captain’s cruel motives. The Pale Man and Captain Vidal has a lot of similarities except one in the reality and the other is in the fantasy world.
The similarities of Captain Vidal and Pale Man in front of a sumptuous feast.
Ofelia manages to retrieve the dagger, but on her way out, cannot resist the temptation of eating a big juicy grape, symbolizing the wealth accumulated by the Cronus figures. This awakes the Pale Man, who immediately places his eyeballs in his hands and starts chasing Ofelia even it has wobbly limbs. At the end of the movie, when the physically weakened Captain Vidal is tenaciously chasing Ofelia, his manhood is so strong that nothing can stop him, as if he were a supernatural being similar to the Pale Man.
The pale man's eyes on his hands is a feature shared by the Japanese mythological monster the Tenome. Te-no-me means "eyes on hands".
In summary, I really do like this film which contains a lot of mystery to be solved especially when it comes to it’s real or just an imagination? To me, the power of Pan’s Labyrinth derives from the fact that Ofelia’s world must be imaginary, that she uses her imagination to escape the horrors of reality like the civil war and her evil stepfather, and this makes the ending all the more tragic as her stepfather kills her, and she can only imagine herself going on to a better place to reign as a princess. There are points in the film where it seems obvious that Ofelia is imagining things as a child would. Her stepfather can’t see the faun she’s talking to, the fairies are really grasshoppers and all. Her adventures come across as an eleven-year old’s way of coping with misery and loneliness.
But on the whole issue is kept ambiguous, so that viewers can interpret things how they wish. For example, Ofelia’s mother, Carmen. She has a rough time with her pregnancy until Ofelia hides a magical mandrake-root under her bed; her health then begins to improve. When the root is later discovered by the stepfather and was thrown into a fire, she goes into miscarriage and dies. This is filmmaking at its best, teasing viewers, allowing them to draw conclusions without forcing conclusions. Some doesn’t like the movie for its sorrow and darkness thus some like it for its fantasy. If Del Toro wanted to tell a fairy tale for adults which was his intention, and with a heavy political message, what’s the point of a child’s imagination being real? That fantasy can prevail against fascism? Sounds like a tale for kids after all.
Well, not really. Pan’s Labyrinth is definitely not for kids, given all its refreshingly honest darkness and brutality. And despite my complaint, I still love the film, by the standards of most fantasy, it’s a serious achievement. Del Toro feels that he left the ending open-ended, and that there was specific evidence of this, so why not go investigate more into this movie? The evidence to seek if it’s real or just imaginary was left for you to be solved because everyone has their own interpretation and perspectives in solving problems.
