Pan’s Labyrinth

Pan’s Labyrinth (Guillermo del Toro, 2006) is the second film in del Toro’s trilogy depicting the Spanish civil war, The Devils Backbone being the first. The film is set in the remote woods in Spain 1944 as right wing troops try and flush out rebels (left wing) in the wood. The protagonist is a young girl named Ofelia who goes and lives in the woods with her step father, a brutal and murderous captain with her heavily pregnant mother. This is were she starts to see a magical world.

Uterine imagery plays a key role throughout the film for example when Ofelia has to kill the frog that lives under the tree as it is using all the nutrients to survive therefore killing the tree. The tree can be used to represents Ofelia’s mother, Carmen as she is very ill and fragile true to her unborn son which represents the son. When I first watch the scene were Ofelia kills the frog I thought Carmen was going to have a miscarriage but it turns out in the end Carmen dies and Ofelia’s brother survives.

There are a lot of references to fairy tales such as the dress which looks like Alice’s from Alice in Wonderland. At the end of the film when Ofelia returns to her magical kingdom a close up of her red shoes are shown referencing Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz. In the Wizard of Oz Dorothy clicked her shoes together to get back home, the fact Ofelia is wearing them at the end shows she’s back home in a happier place.

With the use of fairy tale references you would expect the story to have a happy ending were Ofelia is saved but she isn’t and she dies. It could be argued that she did have a happy ending as she manages to return to her magical kingdom but I would argue the ending in more bitter sweet. This is because in the events leading up to her death we see Ofelia talking to the faun but then we switch to the captains point of view we just see Ofelia talking to herself. It shows that Ofelia has made up this magical world to cope with the brutality of the real world which is especially sad as she is a child and the audience feel more protective and sad for her as children are innocent. The sweetness comes from the fact Ofelia thinks she’s returned to her mother and father in her magical kingdom and that she can finally be at peace and happiness.

I like how colour is used in the movie as in Ofelia’s final moments alive there is barely any colour the shots just has cold blue tones with bright red used as the blood really showing the brutality of her death. This contrasts heavily with her in the magical kingdom were she is finally happy and has escaped the harsh reality of real life. The colours in this scene are all warm toned making it seem homely which is fitting as she had finally returned to her kingdom.