Pan’s Labyrinth is the story of a young girl, Ofelia, who conjures a fantastical imaginary world in contrast to an oppressive reality in her adoptive father’s rural army camp in Franco’s post-civil war Spain. While Ofelia’s expectant mother strives to placate her ruthless army captain husband, Ofelia is charged with a series of three magical tasks by a mythical goat-like creature she discovers in the ruins of an labyrinthine structure in the woods.
Mexican director Guillermo Del Toro (Blade 2, Hellboy) takes a break from Hollywood to return to Spanish language film with the type of more personal, lower budget genre work he has periodically produced since his feature-film debut with 1993′ s ‘Cronos’. Like Del Toro’s previous Spanish picture ‘The Devil’s Backbone’, Pan’s Labyrinth fuses a story of personal struggles in civil war-era Spain, with supernatural genre elements, each foreshadowing the other to a degree. Unfortunately Pan’s Labyrinth, while certainly an entertaining success, seems less focused, or possibly just more abstract, in providing a unifying theme to it’s structure than it’s predecessor.
Again Del Toro and his brilliant regular cinematographer Guillermo Navarro supply a richly atmospheric visual experience. Special effects are applied with subtlety and taste, despite the relatively low budget Del Toro’s fantastical imaginings seem every bit as gritty and authentic looking as those of the Lord Of The Rings trilogy (minus Pet er Jackson’s periodicly excessive CGI-gasms). The acting is solid all round, with particular kudos to Sergi López as Ofelia’s granite-faced stepfather Capitán Vidal, a man utterly lacking in self-doubt.
While ‘The Devil’s Backbone’ suitably presented itself in the classic, more gentle, ghost story tradition of M.R. James, Pan’s Labyrinth has a relative gentleness in it’s fantasy storytelling which seems at odds with it’s sometimes gruesome visuals. On the other hand, the real-world side of Pan’s Labyrinth features some short bursts of truly extreme violence, Del Toro doesn’t shirk from showing the full horror of that particularly bloody civil war.
Del Toro has made another highly accomplished and worthy piece with Pan’s Labyrinth, Hollywood simply doesn’t make genre films like this, but for me it just didn’t hit all the right notes as well as ‘The Devil’s Backbone’.
Showing at the QFT Belfast until Thurs 7th Dec.
BROWSE
Pan’s Labyrinth official UK website
Guillermo Del Toro fansite
Words by Kurt Vile
7 responses so far ↓
Matt // November 29, 2006 at 12:21 pm
Gonna go see this tonight – it looks very good – interested to see how they pull it off.
The Editor // November 29, 2006 at 1:11 pm
I really wanna see this too, that goat dude looks well freaky!
Jonny // November 30, 2006 at 11:48 am
Went to see this last night. Thats a pretty good assessment of the film, the cinematography was fantastic although the two storries didnt seem to meld particularly well for me. I kept searching for the link between the fantasy realm and a Facist commentary to no avail, perhaps i was just looking for the wrong thing. Id heard good things about Ivana Baquero as Ofelia but wasnt overly impressed to be honest
Matt // November 30, 2006 at 1:30 pm
yeah im with jonny – a little disjointed that film. Maybe i just missed it. I always feel i find themes and links in subtitled films harder to pick up – maybe thats just conincidence.
The Editor // November 30, 2006 at 5:58 pm
Sometimes it’s just the different culture though- Nightwatch (Nochnoy Dozor) was a great film, but totally disjointed.
Kurt Vile // November 30, 2006 at 8:57 pm
The way I understood the link between the two sides of the movie was that when you grow up the cozy world of childhood is left behind, there are no magic answers to the big problems life can present you with, mortality bears down on you and you forget what it was like to be a child.
Ofelia’s mum and the resistance chick both say this to Ofelia in the movie, and the Faun also explains how when ‘Princess’ Ofelia left the underworld she grew up and became mortal & lost her magic, forgot who she was and died in obscurity. Capitan Vidal is shown to be anxious that he and his father’s name will not be forgotten and should live on through a male heir, even to the bitter end this is his struggle. Also, in Spain people don’t speak about the civil war, it’s a really big taboo and has practically been wiped from people’s memory.
I THINK thats the theme here, but like I say this one was a bit more abstract than the Devil’s Backbone in this sense.
The Editor // March 12, 2007 at 11:39 pm
Thought this was nothing short of amazing. Graphic, scary and memorable. The 2 stories balanced fine I thought- the girls fantasy world appeared when she needed it, or when she believed in it.