Pan’s Labyrinth [El Laberinto del Fauno]. 2006. By Guillermo del Toro. 112 min.

DVD format, color. (Warner Brothers, Picturehouse Entertainment.)

JACK ZIPES
University of Minnesota

At the very beginning of Guillermo del Toro’s harrowing fairy-tale film, Pan’s

Labyrinth, better known in Spanish as El Laberinto del Fauno, a pregnant young woman

named Carmen is traveling with her eleven-year-old daughter Ofelia in a Bentley

limousine. They are being driven through a verdant forest to be with Carmen’s fascist

husband, Captain Vidal, who is rounding up and killing the last of the guerillas in

northern Spain. It is 1944, and the Franco regime has been firmly established. But there

are still pockets of resistance in the countryside that the fascists need to “cleanse” and

control. At one point during the trip, Carmen takes the book that Ofelia is reading in the

limousine and remarks, “Fairy Tales? You’re too old to be filling your head with such

nonsense.” Later on, after their arrival at the fascist encampment, Ofelia asks Mercedes,

the intrepid maid, who is clandestinely helping the desperate guerillas in the woods,

whether she believes in fairies, and Mercedes replies: “No. But when I was a little girl, I

did. I believed in a lot of things that I don’t believe anymore.” Then, toward the end of

the film, right before her mother dies, she warns Ofelia, “As you get older, you’ll see that

life isn’t like your fairy tales. The world is a cruel place.” She moves to a fireplace

carrying a magic mandrake that Ofelia had used to save her pregnant mother and unborn

baby brother. “You’ll learn that,” she says, “even if it hurts.” All at once she throws the

mandrake into the fire. Ofelia screams “Noooo!” Her mother scolds her: “Ofelia! Magic

does not exist! Not for you, me, or anyone else!” The mandrake writhes and squeals in
the flames. The mother doubles over in pain and will soon die. Without magic, Ofelia

cannot save her mother, and it is questionable whether she can save herself.

These three scenes are crucial for understanding how del Toro uses the fairy tale

in Pan’s Labyrinth to offset and comment on the lurid experiences of innocent people

struggling to survive in the dark times of the Franco regime. As we know from history,

their resistance to the fascists was noble but futile. Eventually, however, the Spaniards

emerged from darkness in the 1980s to appreciate those wondrous essential elements of

life that are often unseen and neglected. Like the flower on the tree at the end of del

Toro’s film, hope was reborn for a short period. But today, we live in dark times once

again, even the liberated Spaniards. Fascism has returned in new and ugly forms

throughout the world. Perhaps we may emerge from all the wars, torture, lies, arrogance,

and sadism one day as the Spaniards managed to do in the 1980s. But will fairy tales help

us? Did fairy tales help the anti-fascists in Spain? Can fairy tales provide light and

optimism? What good is it to read fairy tales or even view fairy-tale films in times of

darkness?

These are some of the questions, I think, that del Torro poses in a chilling film

that does not mince words nor delude us about the cruelty in our world. Del Toro wants

to penetrate the spectacle of society that glorifies and conceals the pathology and

corruption of people in power. He wants us to see life as it is, and he is concerned about

how we use our eyes to attain clear vision and recognition. Paradoxically it is the fairy

tale – and in this case, the fairy-tale film – that offers a corrective and more “realistic”

vision of the world in contrast to the diversionary and myopic manner in which many

people see reality.

 There is another very early scene in Pan’s Labyrinth that is a good example of del

Toro’s emphasis on developing sight and insight through the imagination. Right before

Ofelia and her mother arrive at the encampment of the fascists at an old mill, the pregnant

Carmen becomes nauseous. The limousine stops. They get out of the car. Carmen throws

up. Ofelia walks into the woods and discovers a stone eye that belongs to an old pagan

statue. As she re-inserts the eye into the statue’s socket, a fairy disguised as a praying

mantis appears on top of the statue’s head. Ofelia sees it and recognizes it as a fairy.

From that point on, this vision, which is really an imaginary projection, changes her life.

In fact, she has real double vision, unique visionary powers that enable her to see two

worlds at the same time, and we watch as she tries to navigate through two worlds, trying

to use the characters, symbols, and signs of her imaginary world to survive in a social

world destitute of dreams and filled with merciless brutality and viciousness. Tragically,

she cannot reconcile these worlds.

Del Toro moves us back and forth between the two worlds with a focus mainly on

Ofelia’s struggle for reconciliation between the horrors she sees the fascists perpetuate on

the local peasants and the arduous tasks of her own fairy-tale world. Though del Toro has

conceived his film as telling one complete story with two plots that are inextricable, it is

necessary to sort the plots to understand the nature of his unusual fairy tale.

One plot level is simple and recalls all those popular war films about resistance to

fascism and tyranny. Carmen has married Captain Vidal, seemingly a pathological brute,

but no different from many ordinary fascists who kill people as they please. She had

formerly been married to a modest tailor who had been killed. Though beautiful and kind,

Carmen has become nothing but a show piece and vessel for Vidal’s unborn baby – who
he insists will be a son – and now he has summoned her to the forest because he believes

a newborn son should be with his father so he can mold the child according to his vision

of Spanish manhood. Ofelia, the tailor’s daughter, detests her mother’s husband and

refuses to call him “father.” Once she and her mother arrive, Ofelia quickly grasps not

only their desperate situation but also the hardships of the peasants and the guerillas. She

perceives how Mercedes is collaborating with the village doctor to assist the guerillas,

who are the last resistance to fascism. As Ofelia tries to find a way to help her mother and

unborn brother, the rebels seek different ways to defeat the fascists. Vidal responds by

depriving the peasants, torturing prisoners, and murdering suspicious people. He also

sequesters Carmen so that his unborn son will be protected. At one point, he viciously

tortures one of the captured guerillas and calls the doctor to keep the prisoner alive. But

the doctor disobeys him and ends the young man’s misery. In revenge, Vidal kills the

doctor, leaving no hope for Carmen, who dies while giving birth to a son. Ofelia tries to

save her brother during the guerilla attack on the fascists, but she is trapped by Vidal,

who shoots her. After he takes his son, he is captured by the guerillas, and just before he

is shot, Mercedes tells him that his name will be wiped from his son’s memory.

The second plot involves primarily Ofelia. Her life consists of a series of

traumatic events, and she resorts to interpreting them and seeing them as part of a real

fairy tale. This second plot is introduced to us at the beginning of the film as the actual

frame “story,” and it is somewhat confusing because Del Toro begins with Ofelia’s

“miraculous death” while Mercedes hums a lullaby. In fact, Ofelia actually revives to

transcend the brutal world without anyone realizing this. The first frame is described in

the screenplay written by Del Toro as follows:

 Ext. Labyrinth – Night

In the foreground, Ofelia – 11 years old, skin white as snow, ruby lips and ebony

hair – is sprawled on the ground.

A thick ribbon of blood runs from her nose.

But – the blood is flowing backward into her nostril. Drop by drop, the blood

leaps up and disappears.

Ofelia’s pupils dilate –

(See www.panslabyrinth.com/downloads/PanslabyrinthEnglishScreenplay/pdf for

English translation of screenplay.)

This brief scene is extremely important for several reasons. Del Torro associates Ofelia

with Snow White, a persecuted heroine, who finds refuge with the seven dwarfs in the

forest. Ironically, del Torro’s Snow White will not find refuge in a large lodge in which

the atmosphere is gothic and sinister. Instead of living happily with the seven dwarfs as

protectors, she will be menaced by the cruel Captain Vidal and be killed by him.

However, this first scene reveals that she is alive after her death, and the rest of the film

will explain why her blood returns to her and fills her with life.

The fairy tale frames the realistic story about the end of the Spanish Civil War.

According to the male voiceover, who narrates the tale and returns at the end of the film

to conclude it, and the images that follow the scene of Ofelia returning to life, a princess

called Moanna escapes from the underworld to the human world above ground. She

forgets who she is in the bright world and suffers from cold, sickness, and pain. She

eventually dies. However, the father, the king, knows that she will return in another body,

in another place, and at another time, and so he waits. It is apparent in the next few
frames that Ofelia is reading this tale or dreaming it as she sits with her mother in the

Bentley. Whatever the case may be, she wills herself into this tale, and for all intents and

purposes, it is she who appropriates the tale and creates it so that she can deal with forces

(her mother, Vidal, the end of the Civil War) impinging on her life. What happens in her

fairy tale is what provides her with the courage to oppose the real cruelty of monstrous

people.

Ofelia sets herself three tasks in her fairy tale that are assigned to her by a

mysterious faun, whom she meets in an ancient labyrinth near the lodge. The immense

and weird-looking faun, ancient and sphinx-like, is clearly ambiguous as a “trustworthy”

creature; he appears to be kind and gentle sometimes and mean and menacing at other

times. He is the messenger of the king of the underworld and gives Ofelia tasks to

complete one by one. In order for Ofelia to prove to him that she is the true Princess

Moanna, who has died and been reborn and is destined to return to the wonderful

underworld, she must first obtain a key from a venomous toad and save a tree from dying.

Then she must obtain a dagger from an eyeless and hideous monster, who eats children

and fairies. Finally, the faun demands that she sacrifice her brother in the labyrinth. After

her first encounter with the faun, Ofelia becomes convinced that she is truly the Princess

Moanna, and once she receives a blank book from the faun, she fills it with her

imaginings. Whatever she experiences in her imagination forms the essence of her

strength and courage. It is the fairy tale that enables her to develop the courage to face the

darkness of her times.

When Ofelia dies, the blank magic book reveals an image of Ofelia at the

magnificent court of the Underworld. Her father the king sits on his throne. Next to him
is Ofelia’s mother, his queen. Ofelia is wearing a red dress with sparkling red shoes,

reminiscent of Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, who conquered the Wicked Witch of the

North. Here Ofelia is praised for her final deed of refusing to draw her brother’s blood,

and celebrated by the entire court. She is reunited with her father and mother. And even

though she is dead, her spirit lives on. The narrator tells us that afterwards she reigned

with justice in her kingdom for many centuries and that she left small traces of her time

on earth like the flower budding on the tree that are visible only to those who know

where to look.

Del Toro insists again at the end of the film on the great significance of looking,

perceiving, recognizing, and realizing. The images of the fairy tale, even the grotesque

and macabre images, are intended to compel us to open our eyes. When Ofelia fails her

second test by eating the luscious grapes on the table, she does not see that the monster

has awakened and is using his eyes to eat the good fairies and to menace her. It is as if del

Toro were telling us that neither the real world nor the fairy-tale world is safe from

perversity if we close our eyes, if we are not alert, if we don’t maintain a vigilant and

imaginative gaze at our own experiences, imagined and real.

To say the least, Del Toro is highly creative and imaginative. He employs

different camera angles, zooming and fading from scenes, blending black and white with

a spectrum of colors, shifting abruptly from Ofelia’s personal story to the struggles of the

guerillas. Del Toro has said that he was strongly influenced by Arthur Rackham’s famous

fairy-tale illustrations, except that del Toro’s images and creatures convey a greater sense

of dread and Gothic horror. Each scene demands full concentration, for there are small

details that reveal how enmeshed the real world is with our unconscious and our
daydreams. Vidal’s obsession with time is symbolized by his heirloom, the pocket watch,

which is connected to the hourglass used to test Ofelia. Time is linked to order, and order

to oppression. When Vidal’s pocket watch, which belonged to his father, is smashed in

the end, it prefigures the end of the fascist heritage. Ofelia’s mandrake root which she

uses to try to save her mother and her unborn brother recalls the image of the wooden log

used by the Czech filmmaker Jan Svankmajer in his disturbing fairy-tale film Otesánek

(2000). The gnarled log comes alive as a baby, just as the mandrake root resembles and

makes sounds as a baby. Its appearance is similar to the gnarled tree that Ofelia saves

when she overcomes the poisonous toad that inhabits it. All of del Toro’s images are

intended to evoke startling associations that make us question our realities.

Del Toro has stated, “I know for a fact that imagination and hope have kept me

alive through the roughest times in my life. Reality is brutal and it will kill you, make no

mistake about it, but our tales, our creatures and our heroes have a chance to live longer

than any of us. Franco suffocated Spain for decades as he tried to fashion it after what he

believed to be ‘good for her.’ Yet Spain didn’t die; she exploded, vibrant and alive, in the

80s. Spain lived the 60s in the 80’s and they are still feeling the aftershocks of such a

wonderful explosion.” (“The Making of Pan’s Labyrinth,” MoviesOnline.

Http://www.moviesonline.ca/movienews_10978.html.)

It is of course debatable how much hope fairy-tale films can bring audiences, or

whether Spain has fully recovered from the cruelties of Franco’s regime. Here I want to

conclude by returning to some of the questions I raised about fairy tales and fairy tale

films at the beginning of this review essay. Can they help us in dark times?
 When del Toro speaks about stories that affirm humanism, he is alluding to tales

and films that do not eschew politics but dare to depict the gruesome atrocities in life in

horrifying detail. When it comes to fairy-tale films, he sets a new standard of honesty and

frankness in his depiction of torture, sadism, and fascism. With the exception of Matthew

Bright’s Freeway (1996), a superb rendition of Red Riding Hood in a violent American

society, I know only a few fairy-tale films that focus on the indomitable and resilient

spirit of courageous human beings to confront the cruel and arrogant forces that appear to

be dominating our world today. In both del Toro’s and Bright’s fairy-tale films, the major

protagonists tend to be young girls whose insights alter our vision of circumstances

beyond their control and our control. One of the most striking features that distinguish the

more critical and complex fairy-tale films at the end of the twentieth century and

beginning of the twenty-first is their focus on a persecuted young heroine, generally a

teenager or pre-pubescent girl, who has the perspective and courage of a moral arbiter in

a perverse world. Films such as Jim Henson’s Labyrinth (1986), Jan Svankmajer’s Alice

(Neco z Alenky, 1988), David Kaplan’s Little Red Riding Hood (1997), Andy Tenant’s

Ever After (1998), and Hayao Miyazaki’s Spirited Away (2001), to name some of the

better ones, though very different in style and plot, have one significant purpose in

common: they seek to pierce the deluding spectacle of our daily lives that distract us from

the brutality in our world to reveal what lies beneath the show. Their stories do not

conclude with typical happy endings, yet they do offer hope that human beings can

survive dark times and need not escape into private worlds. Indeed, they can use their

imagination to comprehend reality and to create better worlds.

 Throughout the world, children and adults are more apt to be familiar with

cinematic versions of the fairy tale that resemble the Disney corporation’s conventional

films in which social contradictions are glossed over and harmoniously reconciled in the

name of a corporate institutions that govern our lives. Del Torro has commented on the

conventional fairy-tale film this way:

In the spiritual formation, for me, both fairy tales and the Bible had the

exact same weight. I was as enthralled by a parable in the Bible about the grain of

mustard, as I could be about three brothers on their quest to marry a princess, and

I found equal spiritual illumination in both. And even when I was a kid, funny

enough, I used to be able to find those fairy tales that felt preachy and pro-

establishment, and I hated them. I hated the ones that were about, “Don’t go out at

night.”

There are fairy tales that are created to instill fear in children, and there are

fairy tales that are created to instill hope and magic in children. I like those. I like

the anarchic ones. I like the crazy ones. And I think that all of them have a huge

quotient of darkness because the one thing that alchemy understands and fairy tale

lore understands is that you need the vile matter for magic to flourish. You need

to turn it into gold. You need the two things for the process. So when people

sanitize fairy tales and homogenize them, they become completely uninteresting

for me. (Sheila Roberts, “Guillermo del Toro Interview, Pan’s Labyrinth,”

MoviesOnline. Http://www.moviesonline.ca/movienews_10199.html.)

Disney fairy-tale films and their ilk are meant to amuse, distract, and sanitize.

Their illusion is delusion. As Guy Debord has pointed out (The Society of the Spectacle,
Trans.Donald Nicholson-Smith [New York: Zone Books, 1995]), we live in a world of

the spectacle that causes our lives to be mediated and determined by illusory images.

Debord explains that “the spectacle is not a collection of images; rather it is a social

relationship between people that is mediated by images” (p. 12). In contrast to Walter

Benjamin, who believed that art in the age of mechanical reproduction would lead to

greater democratization and freedom of choice in society through the film and other

forms of the mass media, Debord argued along the lines of Theodor Adorno’s theses in

his essay on the culture industry (Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno. Dialectic of

Enlightenment Trans. John Cumming. New York: Seabury Press, 1972) to show how the

dominant mode of capitalist production employs technology to alienate and standardize

human relations. In particular, he examined the totalitarian or totalizing tendencies of the

spectacle or what he called the spectacular, because the spectacle is constituted by signs

of the dominant organization of production and reinforces behaviors and attitudes of

passivity that allow for the justification of hierarchical rule, the monopolization of the

realm of appearances, and the acceptance of the status quo. Only by grasping how the

spectacle occludes our vision of social relations will we be able to overcome the

alienation and separation that pervades our lives. Debord insisted that “by means of the

spectacle the ruling order discourses endlessly upon itself in an uninterrupted monologue

of self-praise. The spectacle is the self-portrait of power in the age of power’s totalitarian

rule over the conditions of existence” (p. 19-20).

Debord did not believe that the spectacle was impenetrable or that we all live in a

glass bubble constructed by illusions. He wrote, as many critics have continued to write,

to expose, contest, and negate the predominance of the spectacle and the social
organization of appearances. His concept of the spectacle is particularly important for a

critical understanding of how the fairy tale as film was “spectacularzied” by Disney and

other Hollywood filmmakers, that is, how its signs and images were organized to create

the illusion of a just and happy world in which conflicts and contradictions would always

be reconciled in the name of a beautiful ruling class.

It is to del Toro’s credit that his fairy-tale film, as well as his other films Cronos

(1993) and The Devil’s Backbone (2001), endeavor to deflate and pierce the spectacle of

society. If Pan’s Labyrinth, and other fairy-tale experiments like it, can offer any hope

today in our dark times, it is through a sober reflection of why we continue to allow

righteous people who proclaim to act in the name of God to use torture and force in a

godless world. In protest, it seems, Del Toro’s film refuses in the name of humanity to

glorify spectacle.