Pan’s Labryinth

El Laberinto del Fauno (Pan’s Labryinth) is the eighth feature film from director Guillermo del Toro, best known to American audiences for his 2004 hit Hellboy, based upon the cult-favorite comic book of the same name.

The film is set in rural Spain in 1944, during the fascist repression that preceded the end of World War II. A young girl named Ofelia (played brilliantly by 12-year-old Ivana Baquero), obsessed with fairy tales, discovers an ancient labryinth near her stepfather’s property, and, like Alice down the rabbit hole, falls into a wondrous world of fairies, fauns, and magic.

The Alice in Wonderland parallel is obvious from the earliest moments of the film. Like Alice, Ofelia seeks escape from the real world, a world which she cannot fully understand, and in which she does not fully belong. She immerses herself quite willingly into the supernatural, magical world to which she is exposed. She has a greater destiny to fulfill in this dreamy realm, and that is to become the queen of the underworld (which, despite the dark intonations of Hell, is really just a realm of magical creatures).

As both writer and director, del Toro is incredibly adept at interweaving both the real world and Ofelia’s wonderland. By the end of the film, it is nearly impossible to discern whether the events we’ve witnessed were real, or merely the escapist fantasies of a troubled young girl. There is a strong current of dark violence running through both worlds, making the journey to the Underworld nearly as frightening as the life Ofelia leaves behind in Spain.

Sergi Lopez plays Capitan Vidal, the leader of the Spanish troops. He is dedicated to eradicating opposition to the government. He carries a broken pocketwatch from his father, a reminder of “how a brave man dies”. In a desperate obsession for a male heir, Vidal has brought his pregnant wife Carmen (Ariadna Gil) directly into the war zone, to be at his side, because his son must be born in his presence. Ofelia is Carmen’s daughter from her first marriage (the father, a fisherman, has died), and she is reluctantly brought along. Ofelia is treated with indifference at first, but this grows into contempt as Vidal faces the ailing health of both mother and baby. It is in parallel with this growing hatred from her new father and the worsening health of her beloved mother that Ofelia’s immersion into her Underworld takes place.

Guillermo del Toro does a fantastic job capturing the brutality of the fascist Franco regime, as he shows a small group Spanish soldiers trying to subdue rebels living in the woods. In one horrifying scene, a rebel sympathizer (played by Maribel Verdu) slices Capitan Vidal’s cheek open nearly from mouth to ear. He painstakingly stitches his face back together while the audience can only watch in horror. Finally, he takes a mouthful of liquor, and winces as it seeps through the bandage on his face.

But horror is not only restricted to the real world. In Ofelia’s Underworld, there lives a terrifying creature who keeps its eyes in its palms, guards an incredible banquet feast, and apparently sustains itself by devouring children (a nearly-ceiling-high stack of small discarded shoes hints at this). The creature is scary to adults, and can only be horrifying to a child.

Guillermo del Toro again tapped Doug Jones, who previously played “Abe Sapien” in Hellboy. This time, Jones plays Pan, a faun who is Ofelia’s guide to the Underworld. Pan greets her when she first explores the labryinth, and tells her that she is the reincarnated spirit of the Princess of the Underworld. He then gives her three tasks to complete in order to prove herself. Initially, he only appears at the bottom of the labryinth, but is soon appearing to her even in her bedroom, as she drifts more into the Underworld and leaves the real world behind.

Beautifully surrealistic, somewhat nightmarish, Pan’s Labryinth is a somber, haunting fairy tale about a troubled girl in a troubled time. It could also be del Toro’s best film to date.