Pan’s Labyrinth Contextualised

1. SynopsisReal world:

2. It is 1944 and General Francisco Franco is the fascist ruler of Spain. Captain Vidal and his falangist troops have taken control of a mill in the mountains of Spain. They stockpile food there, giving the civilians barely enough to eat so that they can’t afford to give any supplies to the leftist guerrillas in the woods. Vidal has married Carmen, who bares his child. He sends for her because he wants to be present at the birth of his son. Vidal has little time for Carmen’s young bookish daughter, Ofelia.

3. Unbeknownst to Vidal, his housekeeper (Mercedes) has a brother who leads the rebel maquis. She and Doctor Ferriero secretly supply the guerrillas.

4. The communist rebels retake the mill shortly after Carmen dies during childbirth. As the falangists are overrun, Ofelia kidnaps the newly born child. Vidal follows her into a nearby labyrinth where he shoots the girl and reclaims the baby. He is confronted at the entrance of the labyrinth by Mercedes and a large group of maquis. Pedro (Mercedes’ brother) shoots Vidal under the right eye and kills him. A weeping Mercedes cradles Ofelia. Ofelia dies.

5. Fantasy world:

6. Princess Moanna sneaks out from the underworld to become mortal and dies. Her spirit passes through countless humans. The king of the underworld vows to wait for Moanna’s return. A fairy leads Ofelia to a labyrinth where a faun tells her she is a reincarnation of Princess Moanna and that she needs to return to the underworld.

7. However, to make sure that her magical spirit is still intact, Ofelia has to successfully perform three tasks — obtain a key from the belly of a giant toad (that is killing a tree where enchanted creatures rest); use the key to retrieve an item from a locked door guarded by a demon (the Pale Man); spill the blood of an innocent into the portal of the underworld.

8. The faun instructs her in sorcery. Ofelia is distracted because of her sick mother and fails the second task. Ofelia passes the final test by sacrificing her life instead of her brother’s.

9. Princess Moanna returns to the underworld where she rules with “justice and a kind heart”.

10. Pan’s Labyrinth is a film directed by Guillermo del Toro in 2006. The film is about the continued effects of the Spanish Civil War in 1944 and follows an 11 year old girl named Ofelia as she carries out tasks from a faun who she discovered in a Labyrinth after being told that she is actually Princess Moanna from the underworld. The film also follows Ofelia’s mother Carman who has married a man called Captain Vidal who has taken post at a mill.
11. When and where do the events in the film take place?The period featured, 1944 in Spain, is intriguing to the non-specialist as it is clearly a period where the rumblings from the Spanish Civil War are still being felt despite the war itself having finished in 1939.
12. The film takes place in the mountains in Spain which is considered a disputed area and it is set in the year 1944 (5 years after the Spanish Civil War ended in 1939).
13. Briefly, what was the Spanish Civil War about? When and how did it start and end? The Spanish Civil war was a war between the left wing (Republicans) and the right wing (Nationalists). It started on the 17th of July 1936 and ended on the 1st of April 1939. It ended with the Nationalists winning the war.
14. Which of the factions does the Captain represent? Why is he stationed at the mill? The Captain represents the Nationalists and he stationed at the mill as it was used as an outpost to control that region of Spain and to stop locals giving supplies to the Republicans.
15. Which of the factions do the people in the mountains represent? Why are they hiding? The people in the mountains represent the Republicans and they are hiding because they had less numbers and resulted to using guerrilla warfare.
16. Which of the factions do the political and religious elite support? Why?A local priest, attending a meal held by the Captain, dismisses the possible pain felt by the rebels on theological grounds. His representation lacks humanity and is clearly a barbed commentary on an out of touch and complicit Catholic church: “God has already saved their souls. What happens to their bodies hardly matters to him.” Del Toro uses the cinematic conceit of a banquet to heighten the corruption of the local middle classes and ruling elite.

17. Despite his criticisms of Catholicism as a dogma and institution it is clear that Del Toro admires the spirituality of his native religion — in a later film Crimson Peak, a ghost story, he commented on his belief in ghosts. The scene above is strongly redolent of a stylised heaven with its church-like setting, a rosary window fooded with golden light and a grey bearded father figure flanked by a doe-eyed mother. It is all rather stuffy and formal befitting a royal court perhaps but not a fairy domain. That said it is clearly Ofelia’s (Princess Moanna’s) ‘happy place’ – she has come home to a loving warm family and an adoring people.

18. The political and religious elite supported the Nationalists. This was because they already had power and didn’t want anything to change.
19. Which of the factions do the peasants support? Why? The peasants supported the Republicans because the system that they were living under wasn’t fair to them.
20. What role do women play in the two factions?The representation of women is evidence of the social problems women faced in this patriarchal and macho era.
21. Women tended to do work for the men who were higher up than them. The work which they would do included things such as cooking and cleaning on the Nationalist side. However, women would do more on the Republican side of the war, sometimes even helping out in combat.
22. How is food an important symbol in the film? During the scene with the Pale Man, the food on the table could be a reference to the forbidden fruit and temptation. In connection to fairytales, being tempted by fruit (such as Snow White eating an apple) will often lead to the doom of a character. So Ofelia eating two grapes from the table leads to the Pale Man waking up and attempting to kill and presumably eat her.
23. How is poverty an important theme in the film? Poverty in the film is represented through the rebels and the workers throughout the camp. It’s important to the film as it makes us root for the rebels and hate the nationalists more as they have more wealth. This is because we feel sympathetic towards the people who are not as well off and so it simply solidifies our perception of if the characters are good or bad.
24. How is time an important theme in the film? Time is an important theme when it comes to the Captain. The Captain can be associated with his pocket watch which is an important symbol for him as he plans to destroy it at the moment of his death. We are first introduced to the Captain with his watch and we see him with it several times throughout the film. Furthermore, the Captains room is designed to look like the inside of a watch to add to this symbol.
25. How is disobedience an important theme in the film? Disobedience is shown through Ofelia in the story. Ofelia is always in her own world of fantasy and fairytales, ignoring the real world around her. This is done to show that Ofelia is still a child and cares more about what interests her and what she thinks is best. For example, during her tasks she often does what she’s not supposed to such as unlocking a different lock to the one that the fairies tell her to unlock or eating grapes after she was told not to eat anything at all during the task.
26. How and in what ways does Pan’s Labyrinth draw on fairy tale and fantasy tropes and archetypes? The film has many allusions to classic fairy tales in order to add to Ofelia’s view on the world. Most of the allusions are to do with imagery such as Ofelia’s dress resembling the dress of Alice from Alice in Wonderland. The films story is also structured to be like a fairy tale, with a clear distinction between good and bad and childlike wonder throughout.
27. How is fascism portrayed in the film?The negative depiction of Franco’s fascist forces is clearly intended to be extended to the imaginative poverty of fascism in general — in contrast to the more benign and sensitive (although hardly democratic) fairy kingdom. A more realist political representation is that of the guerrillas who are presented as resourceful and determined and egalitarian. Mercedes’ love of children (Ofelia and her baby brother) suggests a tenderness and a celebration of all things childish — indeed, unlike Ofelia’s weak and dismissive mother, Mercedes gives advice on the handling of fauns.
28. How does Guillermo del Toro employ uterine imagery in the film? Uterine imagery is used during the first task as the tree is shaped to look like it has Fallopian tubes. This is done as Ofelia views her own unborn brother as a sickness for her mother, and this task involves killing the monster that’s killing the tree. This represents how Ofelia wants for her brother to stop being a sickness for her mother.
29. How are maternal instincts presented in the film? Maternal instincts is about how a mother normally acts towards their children. In the film, this is presented through Carmen who wants for her unborn son to be well. However, she doesn’t act as well towards Ofelia and often ignores what she has to say. Mercedes is the character who actually acts more like a mother towards Ofelia as she has a love for children.
30. What is the significance of faces and shaving in the film? The Captain has a care for his appearance which is shown throughout the film by him being very delicate as he shaves his face. He is often shown destroying people’s faces such as the farmer when he bashes his face in with a bottle and him always shooting people in the face to confirm that they’re dead. This is important as the Captain gets his cheek sliced open and is shot in the head at the end of the film to show that he’s being defeated.
31. What is the significance of flowers in the film? Ofelia tells a story about a rose on top a hill to her unborn brother which is surrounded by poisonous thorns. This could represent the rose being adulthood and the thorns being the pain that it would take to get there and how Ofelia doesn’t want to get to that point (adding to the theme of disobedience as well).
32. How does Guillermo del Toro operate a ‘one for them, one for me’ filmmaking policy? He will make one film that is for a big studio where basically he does whatever they want him to do, but will follow up with a film that is totally his own where it’s his idea.
33. How far is Pan’s Labyrinth representative of Guillermo del Toro’s oeuvre?Del Toro as an effective and idiosyncratic fantasy/horror auteur is evidenced in his earlier flms such as Cronos (1993), The Devil’s Backbone (2001) and Crimson Peak (2015) as well as in his much more mainstream Hollywood work such as Hellboy (2004) and Pacifc Rim (2013).
34. How did the critical reception of The Devil’s Backbone influence the production of Pan’s Labyrinth? The Devil’s backbone was critically received very well, and so Pan’s Labyrinth was meant to be an echo of The Devil’s Backbone. It was conceived as being a sister film to The Devil’s Backbone, with it being the brother to Pan’s Labyrinth.
35. Was the film financially successful?Released in the UK by Optimum. Premiered at Cannes in May 2006 to great acclaim. Co–produced by a number of Spanish, Mexican and American production companies the $19 million budget is refected in the complex production design, period dressing and relatively large cast. The eventual worldwide box offce of $83.3 million was seen as a triumph.
36. Why is the year of release of The Devil’s Backbone and Pan’s Labyrinth significant? The Devil’s Backbone was released before 9/11 happened. Del Toro realised just how much the world had changed in that time and so what he had said about brutality and innocence had changed a lot too and so Pan’s Labyrinth had to echo The Devil’s Backbone’s stricture.
37. Why no CGI?The key technology used in this film is the animatronics and green screen work as discussed above and its effective creation of a magical-realist production design. The reason for there being little CGI is in order for the world of the film to be more believable and immersive with no effects that directly pull you out of the story and make you realise you’re just watching a film.
38. Why did GdT write the DVD subtitles himself?Del Toro wrote the subtitles for Pans Labyrinth himself after becoming disillusioned with the translation of The Devil’s Backbone — a film also with the Spanish Civil War as its backdrop and the informal prequel to Pan’s Labyrinth.