Pan's Labyrinth Sparknotes

Backgrounds
Pan’s Labyrinth is a splendid magic realistic movie directed by Mexican director Guillermo del Toro. It has gained worldwide popularity for its profound themes: antiwar, pursuit of democracy, woman’s rights, etc. The style of magic realism and sectional narration in this film technically expresses the directors’ antiwar attitude by showing the psychological injury on the female characters during a war period.
The story was set in 1944 when Spain was ruled by arbitrary Franco government. It started with a 12-year-old girl called Ofelia, who fascinated with fairy tales and magic power, moving to a rural place to live with her step-father. (Pan’s Labyrinth, 2006) The father, whose name was Vidal, worked as a ruthless captain of the Spanish army and treated her pregnant and cowardly mother as a birth machine to continue his family blood. At one night, Ofelia met a fairy who took her to an old faun in the center of the labyrinth, and the faun told Ofelia she was a princess and had a mission to complete. Only if Ofelia proofs her loyalty by surviving three horrible tasks, this little princess will return to her realm. The later story was driven by the intersectional plots between real war progress and magic adventure experience. Two story lines push the development of story step by step and show Guillermo’s real

assumption towards war through his magic realism filming.
Related to the director Guillermo, as a supernatural lover, Guillermo is good at penetrating numerous miraculous elements into his film works and applying double story lines technique quintessentially.

His masterpiece like Pacific Rim, Hell boy, and Pan’s Labyrinth are all represented through two parallel spaces. In Pan’s Labyrinth, the director tries to express his dissatisfaction towards wars and the mental hurt for innocent children and female during the war period. Since Pan’s Labyrinth’s world is divided into two major parts: nightmare reality and unlikely evil dream, Guillermo’s antiwar attitude is also expressed from these two

perspectives.
Ofelia’s Nightmare Reality
Guillermo conveys his strong condemnation for the atrocities committed by both sides of war through the gruesome and bloody realistic scenes. Since realism attempts to be loyal to nature and truth via exact and clear descriptions, the reality world in Pan’s Labyrinth’s is full of scenes in violating actions and bloody close shots. Moreover, the dressing and acting details in the movie also restore the historical events of the Spanish Civil War as much as they can.
Regarding the Spanish Civil War, it broke out in 1936 and was viciously fought between the Nationalist forces and the Republican side. According to Wheatley Robert, the war claimed more than 200,000 losses of lives and caused flights of up to half-million citizens in the country. (Robert, 2004) In the movie, there is a scene that a young man and his elderly father were captured for suspecting of delivering confidential information for guerrilla forces while they were actually hunting for rabbits. Vidal, the little girl Ofelia’s stepfather, as well as a henchman of Franco government, smashed cruelly on the young man’s face with a gun. That scene fully explains the brutal and violence features of wars with bloody screen and vivid sound effects. Another impressed scene in Pan’s Labyrinth is when Vidal was sewing the corner injury of his month, which was cut by Mercedes; A brave and tough woman who cared about Ofelia. This plot is originated from a British tradition: Army would punish traitors by cutting their mouths’ corners of both sides. (Fretts, 2015) According to this scene, audiences can sense the captain’s cruelty and cold-bloodiness as well as the war’s harshness.
In a nutshell, the reality part in Pan’s Labyrinth generally represents terribleness of the war with realistic camera descriptions in blood scenes and character’s facial expressions. Compared with the dream or fairytale part, the dark main color tone and inhuman actions in the real world make it more like a nightmare. Those negative features clearly show Guillermo’s antiwar attitude.
Ofelia’s Unlikely Evil Dream/Fairytale
In terms of Pan’s tests, by creating a visional magic kingdom for Ofelia, the director Guillermo make up a comparatively safer space for Ofelia. That potentially expresses an idea that children are the biggest group of victims in wars, and they deserve an elaborate care and a secure life no matter what happens in adults’ world.
Ofelia was indulged in her world and reluctant to return to the real world because she was frightened and afraid of the war outside. She once said to her unborn brother in a grieved mood, “I love you, dear brother. But I do not want you to be out because this is not a beautiful world.” (Pan’s Labyrinth, 2006) In her mind, that was the world she and people around her suffered a lot. Due to the significant antipathy towards the reality, Ofelia was more willing to believe her imaginary perfect realm where she was the princess. However, nightmare reality did not mean the fairytale world was as good as Ofelia thought. During the process of completing the second task given by Pan, there was a scene that Ofelia came across scary Pale Man, who fed on kids. There was a stack of shabby children’ shoes besides the table, and it represented that even in spirit world they created, children were still mentally injured by wars. (Pan’s Labyrinth, 2006) During ruthless wars, many children lose parents and the opportunities to enjoy their lives. The mental injuries of those losses are hard to recover. Just like Ofelia tried to escape the bloody life from the war, but still end with dying in her dream world. Perhaps Guillermo believes that dying in the dream still better than struggling in the brutal reality.
In my understanding, Ofelia’s new-born brother is a symbol of the future. At the end of the movie, Ofelia refused to sacrifice her brother, who represents the future, to achieve her personal purpose of escaping the reality. Moreover, I believe that the final scene about Ofelia passes the test and returns to her parents are the real endings because she deserves it.
Ofelia Mother’s Tragedy
Beside Ofelia’s perspective, other female characters also play an important role in expressing negative influence of wars. Related to Pan’s Labyrinth, Guillermo not only mentions the harm brought to Ofelia from wars, but also to other females like Ofelia’s Mum and Mercedes. For instance, by complimenting Mercedes’ fight with brutal force, Guillermo tries to emphasize woman’s abilities and intelligence. However, Mercedes’ hard work still cannot help her save her brother and comrades’ lives.
In terms of Ofelia’s mother, Garmen Vidal, a coward woman yielded to her tragedy destiny. Ofelia’s mom wanted to flatter Vidal, who represented the symbol of power in the film, to get his protection during the war. But the consequence showed that she was not able to get Ofelia a warm family and finally got herself killed from the life she chose. On the other hand, Mercedes, a courageous young woman showed her nuts toward dictatorship and male chauvinism, successfully overcome the hardship with her braveness. Even surrounded by soldiers, she dared to escape. When got caught by Vidal, she found a way to rescue herself and punished Vidal on behalf of justice. Therefore, Mercedes had the chance and power to continue her pursuit of dream on the way of comrades’ sacrificing.
For a long time period before the modern age, women had been discriminated in various fields, such as the education, marriage, politics, and economy. Men took women as their private property instead of intelligent individuals. In my understanding, during the first task, the three stones, which had to be put into the toad’s mouth, are generally interpreted as democracy, freedom and equality. Everyone was born to be equal. This is not a vacant slogan but an ultimate objective for all human beings to achieve. Unlike powerless children, adult females should and need to bravely pursue their own dream. That is the only way for them to achieve happiness and perfection even during wars.
Conclusion
Stefan Zweig, a renowned Austrian writer, talks about wars in his book the Fate of the Jews, and he states that we should never be proud of wars, even if they are victorious wars from the nation’s perspective. Not those who are in our history books should be memorized, but people are struggling secretly for the business of the world. They deserve humans’ respect and follow. (Zweig, 1936) Related to Pan’s Labyrinth, in a tenebrous atmosphere, Guillermo presents us with a significant and far-reaching piece of grand work and he advocates his antiwar attitude and necessary of protection for teenage generations.