We all have to grow up at some point, but adulthood like all other things, comes with a price. It’s 1944 post-civil war Spain, in Guillermo Del Torro’s stunningly directed Pan’s Labyrinth, or El Laberinto Del Fauno, starring Ivana Baquero as 11-year-old Ophelia, a princess lost from another world. Drawing on an array of skillful film techniques, excellent casting, especially of the young protagonist who conveys a vivid range of emotions, and masterful writing, Del Torro creates two worlds, one begging us to step into and reclaim our innocence, and another that leaves us with the bitter taste of responsibility and unwanted experience. It’s the perspective of a child that gives this film its magic, quite literally in fact, as we are taken through the beautiful nightmare of Ophelia’s new world, intricately crafted with stark contrasts between the bleak earthly terrain, occupied by the domineering dictator, “El Capitan”, and a heavenly enchanted kingdom, giving rise to the question where the line is drawn between real life and fantasy.
For those of you who have ever completed a labyrinth, one with simply a pen and paper, you might have found it useful to start at the very end. The complexity of this film is in the name, and Del Torro gives us just that, beginning the movie with drops of finality, a dark haze of confusion, and a piercing of hopelessness, overshadowed by the haunting lullaby that captures the essence of the film (linked at the bottom), and a fairy tale. Fairy tales of course are just delusions, or so Del Torro has us question. Forcing us back to the real world, Ophelia and her mother, who is having a difficult pregnancy, have just moved in to the military encampment of her sadistic husband, whose cruel and controlling nature are ever present. He is a man of control, a man of power whose hold on his state is as unwavering as the authority he has over his own encampment, and the new extension of his family. Right from the beginning, the maternal shift from Ophelia’s real mother, to Mercedes, a servant working at the encampment, is one of Del Torro’s ways of coloring the relationships Ophelia has with others, something that become another divider in the two worlds of the film.
With Del Torro, it’s all about questions. Questions of why things are the way they are, why things should be done. Defiance is ever present in this movie. The entire premise of Ophelia’s meeting the Faun and accepting him as a reality in her ascension to her kingdom, is a fantasy. Whether it is real or not in the movie is irrelevant to the message Del Torro delivers us. What is fantasy but escapism? A diving into a world that’s entirely our own, and entirely in our control. It is a reclaiming of our self, of asserting our own authority. It is a defiance. This is weaved in with the political themes throughout the story, and Del Torro’s characters. “Obeying to obey, just like that without questioning, that only makes people like you”.
Del Torro tempts us with rebellion, teases us with a lack of ignorance, and entices us with what can only be described as visually stunning cinematography. As with other movies he has directed, such as his 2015 Crimson Peak, Del Torro takes full advantage of camera angles, lush set design, and a peculiar focus on color. The earthly green and brown tones surround the camp, suffocating and grounding its inhabitants. The warm golds and reds conversely invite Ophelia deeper into the Faun’s world, enveloping her during her interactions in it. In this world we are invited to both accept and reject for its beauty and unsettling sinister quality that seems to shroud the entire film. Malice subtly taints this beautiful world, containing a monstrous toad,
a horrifying child eating monster, and even in the design of the fantastical creatures from the other realm that are there to guide her. It’s no mistake that the faun or the fairies are not created to be much more beautiful and picturesque. Del Torro certainly possesses the necessary tools to make them so. They are meant to be to the viewer, slightly terrifying. After all Ophelia is coming from a world full of violence. A fantasy only has to be more beautiful than the counterpart of its reality to become inviting, and if that fantasy is too beautiful, it starts to become simply unbelievable. And when a fantasy is wholly unbelievable, it ceases to exist.
Within Pan’s Labyrinth spins a dark fantasy that invites us in, making us teeter at the edge of our seats with the desire to float away into a world that’s just for us, where the dangers that lurk are present only at our whims, and where escape is a little less than a day dream.
Mercedes’ Lullaby: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7iJFu2v9x0
