Pan's Labyrinth

In 1944 fascist Spain, a girl, fascinated with fairy-tales, is sent along with her pregnant mother to live with her new stepfather, a ruthless captain of the Spanish army. During the night, she meets a fairy who takes her to an old faun in the center of the labyrinth. He tells her 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 the true princess and will never see her real father, the king, again.

The original title is “ El labrinto del Fauno” and refers to the mythological fauns of Roman Mythology , while the English title is Pan’s Labyrinth because, allegedly, it refers specifically to the faun-like Greek character Pan, but Del toro has stated that the faun in the film is not Pan.

I had heard about this film years ago, but like always, I watched it a couple of years after it’s release, in my Spanish class. I thought the film would have more fantasy in it, because when I watched it I noticed how most of the film was set in the harsh reality of the Spanish post civil war. However, my disappointment of the lack of anticipated fantasy soon disappeared because when the film dips out of fantasy it still enchants and the brutal reality mixed with the tiny bit of fantasy made the end of the film more profound and real for me. I also loved the music in this film; I can still remember one of the songs now, and the music during the intense and violent scenes merged so well with those scenes. Furthermore, the special effects were amazing in this film as there are a couple of scenes that made you turn away from the screen.

Furthermore the film is straightforward and has a simple plot, but the excellence conveyed on the screen comes from the brilliant writing as the film has many metaphors and one of the metaphors is for Spain itself during the Spanish civil war, as it teeters in the edge of nightmare dreamscapes of corruption, violence and the deaths of innocents. People have used such phrases as “Beautiful, violent, magical and sad…” to describe this film, and this exemplifies how that, even though the plot may be simple and straightforward, this film is multifaceted due to its many layers of intelligent writing. In my opinion, his is by far Guillermo del Toro’s best film to date.

Ivana Baquero gives a real good performance as Ofelia and her acting can be matched to that of Haley Joel Osment in the Sixth Sense. Additionally Sergi Lopez played the brutal fascist army Captain Vidal well, and both he and Mirabel Verdu, who plays Mercedes, really drive the story in the historical drama scenes. Also, Lopez portrays the sadism of Captain Vidal excellently in the film, yet her manages to make the audience understand the way he is.