Fantasy vs. Reality in Pan's Labyrinth

"When I was little I believed in faeries. I believed in a lot of things I don't anymore."
-Mercedes [Pan's Labyrinth]
Pan's Labyrinth is currently sitting comfortably near the top of my list of favorite movies. It's a beautiful film with awesome cinematography, music, costumes and makeup- okay, pretty much everything is awesome.
Pan's Labyrinth is one of those movies that just sits with you, and you can't let it go because there's too much to think about, and I love the kind of movie that doesn't leave you.

For those of you who aren't familiar with Pan's Labyrinth (though this post is going to be spoiler filled, just so you know), it's the story of a 12 year old girl during the Spanish Civil war who must complete three tasks to prove she's the long-lost princess of the underworld. Now, when they say 'underworld' in this, it is meant in the traditional Greek sense, just a place where all the dead go (I'm not even sure if it's that, or just a name for a non-specific magical realm). They do not mean underworld in the Christian sense, otherwise known as Hell. (and the Faun is supposed to be like the mythical creature, not Satan. Goat horns do not equal Prince of Lies.).

However, whether or not the magic elements are real or not is actually ambigous. I'm going to talk about both points of view of the movie and 'analyze' them. Inasmuch as I can analyze anything.

The Non-Magical Point of View
Towards the end of the film, Ofelia is talking to the Faun at the entrance of the underworld. Her cruel step-father comes up from behind her, and the camera is showing us what he sees. That is- Ofelia holding her baby brother and talking to... Nobody.

This seems to indicate that the whole movie is either a fantasy created by a stressed out little girl, or the crazed delusions of an insane little girl. It does seem plausible. Let's take a look at the tasks.

The first task is to retrive a key from a giant frog that lives inside the roots of a giant tree. The faun tells Ofelia that the frog is siphoning away the life of the tree. This sounds vaugely similar to how Ofelia's Mother's pregnancy is slowly killing her. Ofelia loves her mother very much, and is suffering conflicted feelings about her brother (at least for the moment...).

The second task is to brave the Pale Man and retrive a dagger from his room. The Pale man's room has a table just brimming with all sorts of delicious looking food. This is after Ofelia is sent to bed with no dinner- so she's probably really hungy.

You can kind of see how the magical elements mirror what's going on in Ofelia's life at the moment. It almost makes sense, except for a few things.

The Magical Point of View
First of all, there's the Mandrake. When Ofelia tells The Faun about her mother's illness, he gives her a Mandrake Root to put under her bed. When Ofelia does that, her Mother's condition improves significantly. When her step-father finds it and throws it into the fire, her Mother's condition grows worse and worse until she dies during premature delievery.

Then there's also the Chalk Door. At one point, Ofelia is locked in her room with a guard at the door. However- she is shown drawing an outline of a door on the wall with the magic chalk the Faun gave her. Later, Mercedes and some others burst into the room to see if she's still there. What do they find? No Ofelia, and the chalk outline of a door on the wall, that's what. And this is in a room where the windows are too small for even a kid to slide out of!

That... doesn't add up. Looking at this movie through a non-magical point of view is very interesting and almost works, but in the end doesn't.


"But Monica!" cry ye skeptics, "What about her stepfather! He didn't see the Faun! That proves that the whole thing is a fantasy!"

Yes. The fact that Ofelia's stepfather didn't see the Faun opens the door for alternate interpretation of the film. But! Let's think about Ofelia's stepfather for a moment. He's basically a monster. He's no better than the Pale Man who (it's implied by a pile of little shoes in his chamber) eats children. Ofelia's stepfather is ruthless, brutal, in otherwords a total psycho.

Do you think that somebody with a heart that twisted and gnarled would be allowed to see the magic? A slogan commonly used for the film was L'innocence est plus forte que mal or in English, Innoncence is stronger than evil. If your heart is clouded with evil, it makes it harder to see light, at least in fairy tale logic.

Conclusion...?
So at the end of the day, I think the fantastical elements really were real in Pan's Labyrinth, due to the evidence above, and because the director himself said that he 'thought' that they were real. ;) But you can still take the route of the gritty and depressing, since it mostly works. Like I said though, I prefer to think that the magic is real, because otherwise, this movie is a lot darker and lightless than it already is. And even a cynic like me loves the light (Grantaire, anyone?).

While we're here, I'd like to talk about the ending a little bit. Whether or not the magic was real or not, the Faun's statement that 'She returned to her Father' is true. If the magic was real, she returned to her father, the king of the underworld. If it wasn't real- she returned to her Father in Heaven.

The director, Guillermo del Toro, defines the ending like this. The tyrant's reign ends with his death, but the martyr's reign begins with his death.

That's a quote from the Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard, who I am by not really a fan of. But I thought that was a gorgeous quote, and worth mentioning, and a good way to end the post.

Happy Existential Musings!

-Monica

And yes, that oxymoron was quite intentional.

Pan's Labyrinth [2006]

[NOTE: This movie has some strong violence and language and is definitely NOT for kids.]

In a time when most movies are reboots and remakes, an original movie is a rare find indeed. Pan's Labyrinth is a very unique film. It's about a young girl named Ofelia, who's living during the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War in the 1940's. She and her pregnant mother move to the country to be with her Step-Father who's an army captain. Almost right away, fantastical things start happening to Ofelia.

Now, the plot of this movie is just like a fairy tale, even if it is an extremely dark one. In the opening narration, we're told that the one day, the curious princess of the underworld escaped into the human world. However, the brightness of the sun blinded her and made her forget who she was, and eventually, she died. However, it was legend that the princess' spirit would someday return home. Now, it turns out that Ofelia is the lost princess, and has to complete three tasks to prove that she is worthy.

This movie features some very good acting performances, the most notable being the lead, Ofelia. She was absolutely terrific, and really made you feel for the character.

As a fantasy, there are tons of stunning visuals in this movie. There's some really good costumes and CGI, though perhaps the most engaging of all the various fantastical elements in the movie were two characters called The Faun and The Pale Man.

The Faun is the one who gives Ofelia her tasks, and, despite looking otherwise, is not evil. The costuming on him is so strange and cool to look at. You can't get the full extent of it from a picture, you also have to see how he moves, too.
He moves almost stiffly, kind of lofty but also sort of graceful in a way. If any of you have seen The Nightmare Before Christmas, think about how Sally walks around and you've sort of got the idea.

Now for the other creature, The Pale Man, who I feel sort of mirrors The Faun in a way (They were actually played by the same man- Doug Jones.). As you can see from the picture, The Pale Man is quite terrifying to look at, and even though he's just in one scene in the movie, he leaves such a big impression. I mean that is just pure, un-cut nightmare fuel. I'd question the practicality of having eyes on your hands, but we must remember that this guy is a monster. Monsters, by their nature, meant to scare the living daylights out of you. So when you think about it that way... XD

This movie is very dark and atmospheric, and beautifully executed. The scenery is gorgeous, and the cinematography was just... wow. There was heavy use of segue, and the scenes were lit so that you see just enough. It was dark, but not poorly lit. If that makes... any sense?

The music in this movie is probably one of my favorite things about it. The music is actually the reason we rented it and watched it! I all happened one day when I was browsing around YouTube, and found a song from it-

Isn't that one of the most beautiful pieces of music you've ever heard? The whole soundtrack is consistently good, and fits the movie perfectly. I'd actually like to devote a whole post to the soundtrack, kind of like what I did with the Spirited Away OST, so I'll be moving on for now.

The Verdict: A
Pan's Labyrinth is a visually stunning film with a moving story. It's executed beautifully, and the end product is a terrific work of art. Not to say that there aren't flaws, though. It should be noted that this movie contains some very bad language(most of it is spoken by nasty stepfather), and scenes of violence. Most of these are lit so you only see the outlines of what is happening, but it's still brutal. There's also some moral ambiguity concerning some characters. However, in the important aspects of morality, this movie gets it right.
This movie, while not for everyone, is a chilling dark fantasy, and a unique change from the usual fare.