Pan’s Labyrinth (2006)

Guillermo Del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth is like a haunting, political graphic novel. It is visually dazzling and inventive but also emotionally engaging. The story of a little girl who moves with her pregnant mother to an army Captain’s residence in the troubled Spanish countryside, which is threatened by militants heading a resistance movement after losing the civil war in the mid 1940’s. The Captain, a cruel, ruthless military man, is also the father to be, and young Ofelia struggles to come to terms with accepting him as the new man of the house. She copes with this surrounding by immersing herself (and us) in the fairy tale world of her books - until she is visited by a fairy like creature-insect hybrid that reveals to her that she is in fact a princess who must return to her magical kingdom. To do this she is expected to complete three tasks, which are ingrained amidst the situation that surrounds her. She completely believes in what she is told and we completely believe in what we see.

Del Toro, no stranger to creating dark, accessible films about creatures and their netherworlds, paints in the backdrop the struggles of a band of underground fighters who wish to crush the might of the military - this is the reality of the film and it mixes well with the fantasy of the film to reinforce the overall storytelling. The film has many strong attributes, most of all the unfolding drama and I was more engrossed by this freedom struggle (a sly inclusion and statement about the time) than the fantasy pull, and while it may not have been the intention of the filmakers to make this the focus, it reflected the maturity of the director at handling a more serious, sombre subject while still doing his monster/horror roots justice. But this is a Del Toro film, and we watch it because of his mastery of a world imagined - which is both brutal and fantastic. A story about the loss of innocence by war, and the way we find hope by searching for it elsewhere.

flag objectionable content