Pan’s Labyrinth

The 2006 Oscar-winning Spanish-language dark fantasy, Pan’s Labyrinth, is often considered the magnum opus of Guillermo del Toro. Being a filmmaker known for combining brutal realism with the oddball surrealism of fantasy in a way that has captivated both general filmgoers and critics many times over, Pan’s Labyrinth incorporated all these aspects together and it led to great success for the creative, with it being the first time he got attention at the Academy Awards, earning six total nominations including Best Original Screenplay and Best Foreign Language Film. Even to this day, the movie is helmed as one of the greatest of the decade and even of all time, but much like his later Oscar-winning film, The Shape of Water (which many have turned on after it took home Best Picture), how much of its praise came due to admiration for the creative rather than for actual enjoyment of the flick

In 1944 Francoist Spain, a young girl named Ofelia (played by Ivana Baquero) is travelling with her pregnant mother, Carmen (played by Ariadna Gil) to go live with her new stepfather, Vidal (played by Sergi López), a civil guard officer and devotee of Falangism, who has been commissioned to hunt the remaining Spanish Marquis in the surrounding woodlands. Being more interested in fairy tales than her own troubled reality, Ofelia is drawn to a mysterious labyrinth that resides near her house, and meets a faun (played by Doug Jones) who tells her that she is the reincarnation of Princess Moanna, the daughter of the king of the Underworld who escaped to the human world, had her memory erased, and died a mortal, with the king hoping that her spirit would come back to him in some form. Taking part in several tests in order to return to the Underworld, Ofelia’s actions are noticed by the sadistic Vidal, who is mistreating both her and her mother as he only cares about the son that is currently growing within her belly, and this only convinces Ofelia more that she needs to escape this physical life, doing as many dangerous things as possible in order to achieve this goal.

Pan’s Labyrinth has the workings of a great movie and contains some eye-catching visuals, solid ideas, good actors, and a competent structure, yet in terms of actual content, the film is surprisingly dull, not that well written, and wastes so much of its creative spark in exchange for a stock narrative.

Taking inspiration from the works of Franscico Goya, Arthur Machen, Algernon Blackwood, Jorge Luis Borges, and especially Lewis Caroll (with it containing a lot of similarities to his most famous story, Alice in Wonderland), Pan’s Labyrinth acted as del Toro’s second attempt at a Spanish-language feature, with his first, the 2001 gothic horror film, The Devil’s Backbone, being spiritually tied to this film through similar themes and even returning actors. Designed as a parable influenced by fairy tales, this premise about a girl going into a messed up fantasy in order to escape her more hellish real life can be made into a complex psychologically-rich story which ties in multiple different themes and visuals in a way that would benefit del Toro’s uniquely dark presentation, but instead of utilizing his strong qualities, it features a lot of his less-than-stellar ones. Guillermo del Toro is a great visionary and makes wonderfully distinct movies that are always interesting to witness, but he doesn’t have the best track record when it comes to writing his stories, as they usually turn out very flat, uninteresting and riddled with generic characters and cliched outcomes.

This is likely meant to act as contrast to the outlandish magical creatures and situations that take centre stage, and this film is no different, but because this world’s reality is presented as so barren and uncomplicated, it doesn’t mesh well with the layout of a classic fairy tale, which are known to be basic in their motivations and story pacing. The real world topics aren’t deep or engaging enough to add a level of nuance onto a charmingly simplistic framework, and the fantasy element isn’t explored enough to feel strikingly different from the real world, which is doubly disappointing as the lack of subtextual symbolism surrounding the fantastical aspects makes it far less interesting (ironically making it real and not a mental construction this young girl uses to cope with her lack of control is much less fascinating than if it was all in her head). The pacing is okay, some scenes surrounding the militia and the rebellion are acted well enough, and the fantastical portion, while being very brief, does contain an element of disturbed wonder which could’ve been better if delved into more, so it’s just a shame that so much potential was wasted on generic scripting and a dull narrative (both of which del Toro was solely responsible for).

The acting is pretty serious, which isn’t surprising given the harsh environment, but this also leads to most of the roles coming across more like cinematically constructed characters rather than actual people. Given the basis for the story’s origins, this does make sense and could work if written well enough to function within both the believable and unbelievable sections, but while no one is a bad actor and some of the supporting characters like Ariadna Gil, Álex Angulo, and especially Maribel Verdú do well with the little they have, all these roles are very bland and feel like they’re meant to represent generic archetypes rather than be unique individuals who’ll leave a long-lasting impression. Because the story is trying to tackle more complex themes and darker elements, this basic presentation weakens its credibility and can even result in some people looking pretty awful. No one suffers this worse than the lead, as Ofelia feels like your standard fairy tale main character, but because the stakes are more dramatic and the consequences more severe, her ambivalence towards the real world and active dismissal for anything outside of her own bubble, makes her come across as pretty selfish.

She’s not written in a way that makes these questionable decisions seem plausible, the character has no identity or personality outside of just ‘’liking fairy tales’’, she’s way too accepting of this supposed reincarnation story to the point that it makes her look foolish, and Ivana Baquero feels like she’s trying her best, but is offered nothing to make her anything more than a view finder to show the joys and horrors of this premise to the audience. The villain is in the same boat, with an outline that could work and an actor who does do a good job, but a character who’s so blandly written and given such generically evil lines and motivations that it’s honestly a bore whenever he’s on screen. The magical creatures are a little more interesting (just because they are allowed to be a bit more inventively weird than the humans), but they aren’t on screen as much as you’d expect, and while the Faun has a great look and Doug Jones does a great job making it hard to tell whether you can trust him or not, he’s not positioned to be a real character, rather just an observer who states the next action for Ofelia to take.

The visual design got the most attention from Academy voters and was the reason the film won its three Oscars (being Best Cinematography, Best Art Direction and Best Make-Up). Even though the film doesn’t spend a lot of time in the fantasy realm, it is still constructed in a way that feels slightly above normal reality. The lighting has a wonderful saturation that heightens the emotions of select sequences and gives each area a unique atmosphere. The real world has these strong sea blue tones that on the one hand, makes things otherworldly and slightly serene, but also spooky in another sense, and contrasting that with the magical realm which gives off a strong golden hue really ups the majestic quality of this strange place and makes it feel separate from reality, which has colder and hollower feel to it. The ornate way some of the sets are designed and constructed by production designer, Eugenio Cabellero, makes the whole project feel high-class and polished, the cinematography by Guillermo Navarro is nicely cinematic and leads to some good establishing shots, and the musical score by Javier Navarrete features the familiar sweeps and swoons of typical fantasy music with just enough weight behind it to keep the grizzly nature of the story intact.

The make-up work is nothing short of phenomenal, with del Toro going out of his way to showcase as many practical creatures as possible using make-up and animatronics. The make-up on the Faun handled by David Martí, Montse Ribé and Xavi Bastida looks incredible, with the expressions, mannerisms and speech pattern making it really feel like a living moving creature, yet the abnormal design and frantic body movements keep him as an entity not of this earth. This can also be said for the Pale Man, whose creepy design has been ingrained into pop culture so extremely that he has essentially become the image of this film, it’s very well done and leads to an iconic creepy scene.

Pan’s Labyrinth is the movie that made Guillermo del Toro a global sensation and paved the way for him to be a regular at future Academy Awards, but whether its due to expectations versus results or just a consequence of steeping your movie in a genre that is prime for creative exploration, this film strangely doesn’t live up to its reputation or potential. It’s not in any way a bad movie, as the acting is good, the story is directed and paced fine enough, the visuals (when they get the chance to be creative) are well done and give the movie a distinct identity, and del Toro should be applauded for continuing to try and bring out-of-the-box movies into the mainstream, but for a story that claims to be unique and wildly creative, the script proves to be anything but, and paints this very dark, dramatic and seemingly complex situation in a very dull, even insultingly barebones manner. It could’ve been a lot worse, and he would go on to prove that he can take a familiar fairy tale and warp it into much darker territories without losing a creative touch with his version of Pinocchio, but otherwise, this awards darling isn’t as magical as it could’ve been.