El Laberinto del Fauno: Pan’s Labyrinth-Film Critique/Review

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Plot Summary

 Under the rule of a fascist regime in Spain 1944, Ofelia moves in, along with her mother and unborn child, to the new step-father (and a very tyrannical one). Lonesome as it gets, she builds a world of her own and discovers creative things such as a maze with a Faun promising her the gift of immortality but with a catch. She must finish three tasks. This labyrinth is filled with creatures and adventures she has yet to see and while she tackles these challenges on her own world, she must resolve her real world issues and coincide with her made up one. How does she do it? We just have to wait and see. 

Interpretations, Symbolism, Relevance of the Story to the Events

Hey, I’m not going to lie. This movie totally had me closing my eyes at probably every second 😂 certainly not advisable for a movie reviewer BUT nonetheless… I managed! I generally am not the type to go for thrillers such as Pan’s Labyrinth since my love goes to things like… just movies in general that does not induce nightmares and anxiety 😂 Despite that, I highly appreciate Film and the art that goes with it so doing a review for an award-winning movie is worth seeing the Pale Man chase Ofelia (sort of, I am still creeped out).

These points goes from general to somewhat highly specific, because watching it with a film major friend kinda (for sure) gives you a deeper look into it, even if you had your eyes closed almost the entire time. So, without further a do… let’s get into it!

First impression with the title, totally Greek mythology as Pan is a centaur (or faun if you’re Roman) and this is a hero’s journey in saving the world. BOY I WAS SO WRONG. This heavily reminded me of Alice in Wonderland (which I didn’t really get into as a kid because it creeped me out). The director used a lot of lines and shapes and color techniques to determine between reality and fantasy world that Ofelia had created, and later on the director hints that they are intermixing with each other, leaving the boundaries of imagination and the real world almost non-existing, as if to say that all of what happened is actually true (like the chalk in Captain Vidal’s desk, how’d that get there?) OR Ofelia is just really bordering on insanity due to the heavy stress imposed upon her by worldly sufferings from Captain Vidal and his tyrannical upbringing and control.

 See, this is something that we can compare to what’s happening to the society right now. It anchors on patriarchy and the need for the majority of men to take control. Hey, I’m not saying it’s bad. Men are naturally built to practice control for the stability of the household. I’m just saying that too much control is fascism. 🤣 When given power, humans would in turn sometimes abuse it and practice it without caution and boundaries that sometimes it greatly affects the women (well because we used to be treated as non-equals) and this movie shows how much over-exercising this privilege leads to harm.

This brings me to another point, the child Ofelia’s mother bears. This for her is a symbol of jealousy and defeat. She wants none of it so much that she would go so far as to imagine to take out the fetus from her mom’s womb. This scene is from the part where Ofelia enters into the tree hole, coincidentally (not really, it’s intentionally) shaped as a woman’s genitalia in the task of getting a key. The symbol of the key has several intertextual references, and we could assume that a key is to be put inside a hole to unlock certain things. This means that the key is actually Captain Vidal’s child inside her mother’s womb and she wants to remove it. I don’t know if that made a lot of sense but it did to me! Now what did that show? It shows that Ofelia somehow is jealous of the baby, wanting to be the baby (because she enters the hole into the “uterus”) and/or she thinks that Captain Vidal’s seed should not survive as it, for her, signifies every bad in men.

The colors used for this film is quite exceptional. Cool tones are used for the “reality” part of the film and well as straight lines and pointy shapes. We see a lot of blues and somewhat cool-toned greens. And then when we enter into the “fantasy” world, we see a ton of circles. Edges are softened and warm, bright colors are used from the hues of yellow to the saturations of orange and different shades of browns and hints of reds. And then we see it overlapping with each other, making us think if there really was a difference between the two realities of Ofelia introduced. I’ve read some interviews with the director, and he said that this is the hint of whether it is real of not. 

Maybe this is overreading it, but hey, works of art are always up for several interpretations: the scene wherein the main character forbiddingly eats at the banquet because the pale man will get all scary and chase you to death, aside from the message that the director wants to convey (that instead of feeding children, Catholic priests oppress them, as the director has a dislike for the catholic priests), I would love to see it as men still controlling us women. Especially in body image. Certain standards in society in beauty and hinders our freedom to eat anything we want because of the fear of not being accepted of our appearance.

Also, quite the amazement when death could be her immortality as she permanently now resides in what I think is her imaginary world. Faun kept his promises? 

Reflection

Seeing how this happened, how much Ofelia wants a world of her own, the control she wants to have. Doesn’t that make you think? That the patriarchy overpowers us so much that women see no other choice but to take control as well? To take matter into our own hands and build the world of our own. A much stronger, where we are bosses and answer to no dictators that take a hold of our freedom. Our rights to not wake up scared for our bodies, of what might society do to it in order to show the upperhand’s power. I can’t really blame her for the way she thought. We all just want to be free. And this is no easy task. Because we see at the end, Ofelia dies. This fighting, wanting to be out of the suffering, leads to more hardships and sometimes, it does more harm than good. But what I learned is to try. Try even if you feel and know you are powerless. Because then, maybe this suffering is a preparation of something bigger, something that overcomes death.

Rating

Although I am not really into thriller-like movies with grotesque characters like the ones in this movie, I do LOVE it. The concept, the meaning, the symbol, EVERYTHING. Relevant to the society right now and not at all original but spiced up the movie industry to be honest. And it's not HOLLYWOOD MADE! It's from Spain, and won 3 awards at an American awards show. It didn't win those awards for nothing! 5/5 stars for me.