A Review of Pan's Labyrinth
The Dark Fairytale Making Waves with the Critics
In the film, young Ofelia travels with her mother, Carmen, to a military outpost where Carmen's new husband, Captain Vidal, is trying to exterminate local rebels. This imaginative girl goes on an inward journey to discover her purpose in life and her purpose for coming to this remote village. After discovering an old laybrynth at the encampment site, she begins to see and interact with otherworldly creatures who tell her that she is the long lost daughter of the king of the Underworld. In order to prove herself, she must go on a quest and complete several Herculean tasks without alerting the mortals around her to what she is doing.
Filled with intense reds, blues, grays, and blacks, the cinematography and set design of Pan's Labrynth is brilliant. The real world begins to feel like the underworld with its dark, depressing colors (grey, brown, and black) whereas the Underworld is rich in reds, greens, blues, and black. Ordinary objects like pebbles and chalk suddenly become magical and carry Ofelia to another place.
Ofelia's red Underworld with its hideously fascinating creatures is contrasted with the gray world of her step-father, Captain Vidal. He is the king of the Real World, controlling virtually everyone around him with stern commands and fierce brutality. Guillermo del Toro makes sure that you dislike Vidal with scene after scene of vicious, methodical, apathetic brutality. Not unlike the villains of the fairytales, there is absolutely no redeeming quality to this character. Though Pan, the fawn in the story, is slightly scary and has questionable motives, you at least want to like him!
Ofelia and the housekeeper, Mercedes, are just about the only likeable people in this cast of characters. Both are resourceful women faced with uncertain circumstances in a world that consistently offers a choice between one evil and another. Each woman straddles two worlds and longs to return to her home. The two serve as a younger and older archetype of the same resourceful woman. These characters, and the actresses who play them, give life to Pan's Labrynth and make it a tale worth watching. Without Ivana Baquero and Maribel Verdú, this would be a visually stunning film with no depth.
In Pan's Labrynth, you're never quite sure what is fantasy and what is reality and therefore, both worlds are flawed and filled with unnecessary cruelty. The primary difference in the two worlds being that in the Underworld, Ofelia has power and choice, and in the Real World, she has none.
This is the kind of movie that you'll probably love or hate, depending on your point of view and how well you can handle the subject matter and tone of this movie. It is a violent, bittersweet, yet magical tale about the choices we make amidst violence and oppression and the love that motivates those choices. My rating is 4 out of 5 stars.
Published by Venus Rachal
I am a freelance writer in Los Angeles. When I was about 14, I started writing seriously with the dream of becoming a historical fiction and romance novelist. Currently, I am working on a Victorian romance n... View profile
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- This is a visually stunning film filled with rich color and detail.
- Reality and fantasy are so well blended that you're not entirely sure which is which at the end.
- Ivana Baquero and Maribel Verdu give this movie character and depth.
15 Comments
Post a CommentGuillermo del Toro wrote the screenplay. As far as I know, it is not based on a previous story, though he did read a lot of fairy tales and was inspired by them. The movie is set in the time of the Spanish Civil War (which lasted from 1936-1939). So, as far as I am aware, there was no earlier book or story with these characters. But, on the Pan's Labrynth website, they mention a previous film of Del Toro's called The Devil's Backbone which was about a boy in an orphanage during the Spanish Civil War. I haven't seen The Devil's Backbone, so I don't know if it's similar to Pan's Labyrinth.
is there an english version
I liked the story line but I couldn't watch the movie and read the subtitles since i don't speak spanish
Venus, I saw Pan's and loved it. I have a problem though. I have either read or heard this story before in great detail so I was not shocked nor surpirsed at any of the visuals in this movie. I have tried to research how I could possibly know any of these details including the ones missing from the film, but I could not find an authors name. It must be a newer story if the orignal is written around 1944. I would have remembered reading it in high school or Junior High, I asked my mother if maybe it was a brothers Grimm story since we owned all of thoses story books, but of course they did not write it, I asked my grandmother if she ever told me the story, in which she replied that she never heard of it before. Could you please help me in posting a writer or book that the movie was based on, and if there is none I am going to have to chuck it up to being very clairvoyent. A freind in need, Mike
Yes, the fairies are cute.
I loved this movie as well. I really loved the fairies and of course Pan himself.
He is definitely a cold character, but I was impressed with the way he was presented. He is harsh and cruel and unfeeling... but not unbelievably so. You could ask yourself, "Could this person really exist?" Unfortunatley, I say yes in Vidal's case. I think that all the characterization in this movie was executed very well.
Just saw this movie. It is powerful and compelling but so dark. Not your American-style happy ending.
Well, I do think that del Toro gives an indication of why Vidal has become what he's become. But, as you said, he is not likable. That was my definition of redeeming qualities. Something that makes us truly identify with him and gives us the willingness to walk in his shoes, if only for a moment. I think his brutality is presented in such a cruel way that you don't have compassion for Vidal, just as he has no compassion for anyone else.
Yeah, I definitely see the idea of him trying to recover his lost childhood, but I think a flashback would have been out of place here since there were no other flashbacks in the movie. A truly talented filmmaker can get the backstory across without using flashbacks, which I think del Toro did. I think "redeeming" qualities is what we are stuck on here... If you mean redeeming as in, make you kind of like him, then no, he has none. But redeeming as in: makes us understand him, then yes, i think he does.