by Daniel Stephens

Created on: February 15, 2009

Pan's Labyrinth (Guillermo Del Toro, Spain, 2006)
Dir. Guillermo Del Toro; starring Ivana Baguero, Sergi Lopez

There's a simple, innocent beauty amidst Guillermo Del Toro's harrowing tale of one girl's desperation to escape during the bloody Spanish Civil War. Set just after the D-Day landings at Normandy in 1944, Pan's Labyrinth sees a pregnant mother and daughter travelling to see the unborn child's father - a Captain in the oppressive Spanish army - who is based at an outpost to stop advancing revolutionaries. The daughter - Ofelia (Ivana Baguero) - knows that the man who has fathered her half-brother is not interested in either her or her mother. She feels at once betrayed by her mother for bringing her to this awful place and yet their love is unbreakable, and at the same time fearful and untrusting of Captain Vidal. She is given the chance to escape this terrible world when visited by a Faun who tells her she is a Princess from another world. She can return to her kingdom if she completes three magical tasks.

Guillermo Del Toro, who writes, producers and directs the movie, completes his fantasy trilogy that started with Cronos and continued through The Devil's Backbone. Each film is different in its own way but they all draw on the same themes. Pan's Labyrinth is the antidote for oppression. Drawing on religious overtones, namely life following death, and fairy tale allegories, Del Toro flirts with the idea of childhood innocence and imagination. We never really know if Ofelia's adventures are an actuality or a fantasy but that doesn't matter. Ofelia believes in her adventures and that makes them real. Her release may be her imagination or it may be the promise of a better life but the fact it allows her to escape, if just for a few moments or hours, is the simple and wholesome beauty of Del Toro's film.

Indeed, Del Toro paints a quite horrific backdrop to Ofelia's adventures. Captain Vidal (Sergi Lopez) has little care for either Ofelia or her mother, he's only interested in his unborn son who can continue his name. The civil war that is ensuing all around Ofelia is a mere portrait in the background of her own struggles - her crippled mother appears to be dying in pregnancy, and their safe haven is more entrapment than home. Del Toro also hints that Ofelia's real father may have died at the hand of Vidal, and there's the sense that Vidal's consummation of his relationship with the mother of his child may not have been entirely consensual.

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