Intricate & Dark

Rating: 8/10 (3 August 2013)

Pan's Labyrinth 2006 Intricate and Dark
With a dubious combination of fantasy and war genres, Guillermo del Toro's Pan's Labyrinth (2006)exceeds expectations with a memorable plot and riveting characters.
Once the movie is underway, one barely notices the film is in Spanish with English subtitles because the plot is interesting, but nonetheless a sorrowful, dark depiction of the brutality of war.
The story begins with narration; Pablo Adán refers to an underground world without lies and pain and a princess who longed to see the world above. When she escapes, the sun blinds her erasing her memories. She became ill and died, but her father vows to wait for her return. (del Toro, 2006) In Spain, after the Spanish Civil War in 1944, rebels continued to fight against Francisco Franco and his vision for the New Spain. A delightful inquisitive young girl, Ofelia (Ivana Baquero), and her mother Carman (Ariadna Gil) move to Navarra in the Spanish countryside to live with her stepfather Captain Vidal (Sergi López), a fascist murderer who married her mother for her ability to bare him a son. Their trip makes Carmen ill, so the caravan of cars stops to allow her mother time to recover. Obviously interested in fairy tales, Ofelia wonders off and meets an animated stick like insect, she asks the figure to identify itself as a fairy. Carmen calls her and they resume their trip, but the fairy follows them. The insect fairy wakes her in the night and after altering its image to match the picture of a fairy in Ofelia's book, bids her to follow it outside to the labyrinth behind the mill. The stone maze is an abyss with what is described as Faun (Doug Jones, voice: Pablo Adán) at the bottom. The character is part man, part goat, and part alien. The audience is not sure if Faun is good or bad by nature, but Ofelia is not surprised or afraid of him. He tells her she is princess Moanna, a royal daughter of the underground. He gives her a book that he promises will reveal the future, and assigns her three tasks to complete before the full moon in order to regain her kingdom.
Carmen is ill and bedridden. Doctor Ferreiro (Álex Angulo) administers medication without success, and Carmen's condition worsens. Meanwhile, the depiction of the repulsive character of Ofelia's stepfather unfolds. Summoned by his troops, Captain Vidal addresses two local men discovered by his soldiers. He brutally murders the son, breaking a bottle on the center of his face, and repeatedly hitting his nose with the jagged glass bottle edges beats the man's face until his is dead. His father's breakdown in protest causes Vidal to shoot the father at point blank range in the head, and then he returns to the son and shoots him in the head. He scolds his soldiers for bothering him. In order to enforce his power he rations food by storing it at the mill to starve the rebels.He gives Mercedes (Maribel Verdú) his housekeeper the key. Ofelia befriends Mercedes, and talks with her about her encounter with the fairy. She also reveals to Mercedes that she realizes she sympathizes with the rebels. Ofelia conveys to Mercedes that her secret is safe.
The two-worlds simultaneously unfold with Mercedes assisting rebel troops and Captain Vidal killing rebels, and Ofelia's nighttime interactions with Faun, the fairies, a gigantic toad and the lair's monster a Pale Man (Doug Jones). The theme of this film relates to the emotional effect of Ofelia's need of fantasy to escape the impossible circumstances of war, the condition of her mother's pregnancy and the control of her stepfather.
Pan's Labyrinth's plot is a reminder of the Narnia series with animated characters that require main characters to behave or suffer consequences. The character development follows the unnatural behaviors that internal conflicts of war imposed as expressed in the visual metaphor of the Spanish soldier's costumes evocative of German Nazis. These play out in the setting of the mill in Spain that serves to coincide with the social fascist structure of Francisco Franco in 1944. The unlikely transitions from fantasy to war are expertly acted, with credit given to del Toro for depicting the two masterfully.
The cinematography in the movie is superb. The triad harmony of the fantasy world with the advancing colors of red, yellow,orange, and lavender make the objects appear larger with low angled shots. In the natural world, del Toro uses dark lighting with receding colors that emphasize green and pale blue to depict the depth of the war images and a somber mood. The low-key lighting in the labyrinth emphasized the surrealism of the subconscious to process the setting.
Pan's Labyrinth contains very disturbing abstruse scenes with interesting animation and intrigue that draws viewers to continue watching. The combination genres fantasy and war will probably appeal to an esoteric audience, one that appreciates the psychology and impractical combination or film students studying film appreciation.