A little girl who moves in with an evil stepfather and escapes into a world with fairies and magic seems like the stuff of a 6-year-old girl’s dream. A girl who travels through fascist Spain to live with a violent, merciless, and malicious military leader and is told that she is the Princess of the underworld by a peculiar faun, and must complete deadly and challenging tasks seems a little bit less like a chick flick and more like an action movie. Pan’s Labyrinth makes this jump expertly and creates a more realistic and in depth version of a Dark Fantasy, by using a brilliantly orchestrated mixture of a believable realistic plot and setting with a mysterious and magical fairy realm.
Ofelia (Ivana Baquero) is a girl of approximately 12 years of age when she and her mother, Carmen (Ariadna Gil), move to live with Ofelia’s vicious and cruel military stepfather, Captain Vidal (Sergi López). Ofelia encounters a fairy when they stop on their way to Vidal’s mill, which is turned into a makeshift fort. When she arrives, we meet Mercedes (Maribel Verdú), Vidal’s handmaid, and the Doctor (Álex Angulo), who are both rebels working under his nose. As Carmen draws closer and closer to giving birth, Ofelia wanders into the Labyrinth that lies next to the mill, and encounters a Faun, who tells her that she is really a Princess of the underworld. To prove her royalty, she must complete three terrible tasks by the time the moon is full. As she starts to complete these tasks, and the threat of a rising rebellion becomes greater and greater at the mill, the plot gets slightly harder to understand, as things start to happen and come together quickly. A blending between reality and the other realm makes the plot less believable, but all scenes and actions help to progress the plot as smoothly as possible.
The actors in this film were well cast and all seemed fully capable to play their parts well. Captain Vidal’s animosity and utter loss of sympathy for any creature beside himself was displayed perfectly by Sergi López. The director, Guillermo del Toro, was very smart to show no mercy whatsoever in this character, because it instinctively makes the viewer hate Vidal and view him as a monster. The only character that wasn’t represented as well as she should have been was Carmen. She was too complacent and seemingly not caring about what happened to Ofelia. Although she was pregnant, she seemed to disregard how Ofelia felt about Vidal, and she should have been able to see how much of a monster Vidal was and should have tried to protect Ofelia. Guillermo del Toro did a great job with this film overall. Although it was hard to get the full effect of the characters emotions by reading subtitles instead, especially in the more action packed or revealing scenes, the script was still easy to follow, and made sense, with no horribly awkward or confusing parts. There may have been some description lost in translation, for some Spanish words hold different meanings that are hard to express in English, especially their expletives, which do not line up with ours.
The setting of the film was perfect. Having it set back in the latter years of World War II makes the film simpler, because evil can be represented by the political or military figures that were present during that time period. This also eliminates some of the skepticism and loss of wonder and mysteriousness that comes from modern media and information. Back then, fairy tales and magic could still be possibilities because the world was not as revealed as it is now. The old mill and woodland setting make the old Labyrinth look less out of place than it would have been in a suburban neighborhood or city. The eerie lullaby that Mercedes sings for Ofelia fits perfectly with the shadow and uncertainty that surrounds the other realm. Vidal’s military style songs that he listens to in the mornings when he gets ready for the day nicely emphasize his disciplined way of life.
This film is extremely effective because it takes a story line that many people grew up with and brings it back to them in a more adult manor, using motifs like the fear of death. Guillermo uses blood to expand on this, like the bloody sheets when Carmen dies in childbirth, or the final scene where the only color visible is Ofelia’s blood as she lets it drip down on to the portal to the underworld. People would never expect to see these things in a child’s fairy tale, but realize when watching the film that these problems and motifs are the things that provide the chilling realistic effect of the movie and the characters involved. For instance, it would not be enough to just have Vidal grimace and look tough. To truly express his cruelty, scenes like the one with the two innocent hunters that he brutally murdered are needed to make the viewer really believe and fear the man. This film gave people who love dark fantasy and action something they had never quite seen before, and for that I give it 3 out 4 headless fairies.
