Pans Labyrinth Guillermo Del Toro 2006 Spain Key
Pan’s Labyrinth Guillermo Del Toro, 2006, Spain
Key Themes • • • • Fascism – particularly its effect on Spain Good versus evil. Childhood innocence – the loss of this innocence. Reality versus fantasy. Legacy – continuing bloodlines. Death and rebirth. Organisations and control versus free will and free thought. Conformity versus rebellion. Creation versus destruction. Restoration of family unit. Women in crisis – oppression of women. Rejection of structured, organised religions. Oppression and control versus freedom – physical, psychological and emotional oppression.
Gender Representations • Fascist expectations of women – responsible for the creation of life, as well as saving lives – Carmen gives birth, Mercedes protects the rebels and Ofelia, Ofelia creates life metaphorically through her imagination. • Ofelia is torn – needs to fit into the family but also wants to rebel against fascism. • Carmen is a more negative female representation – conforming to fascist and traditional expectations, while Mercedes is more positive – rebels and is strong. • • • Men are responsible for the civil unrest. Vidal represents authoritarian fascism, while Pedro is the left-wing rebellion. Conflict between men leads to war. Vidal is destructive and war-obsessed, with his focus on his father’s watch. Vidal obsessed with the Patriarchy with his last request – Mercedes tells him his son won’t even know who he was.
Family, Age and Fantasy Representations • Family is restored only in the fantasy narrative – Ofelia’s family is broken in the real world. • Destruction of family is also shown when Vidal kills the poacher and his son. • Ofelia represents the innocence of youth – timid but strong character. • Ofelia is full of wonder and hope – conflicts with moral complications of adult life and the decrepit nature of the Faun and Pale Man. • Fantasy is in bright, warming colours, while the real world is dark and dismal – childhood fantasy versus harsh realities of life. • Ending could suggest fantasy and reality are the same.
Politics and Nationality Representations • Narrative explores complicated nature of Spanish identity. • About the oppressed and rigid institutions killing creative freedom. • Political criticisms of Spain’s fascist past. • Ignorance of institutions who benefited from fascism and turned a ‘blind eye’ – such as the Catholic Church. • Addresses collective national shame.
Auteurism • • • Del Toro has said his film is personal and resonates with him. Fantastical horror throughout his films. Considers himself an outsider – Mexican/Spanish in an American context. Allusions to Frankenstein – creates pastiche from discarded sources leading to something monstrous. Ambiguity and role reversals – some monsters are alienated and misunderstood, while some humans have a hideous morality. Narrative trope of child as a cipher witness – even childhood innocence for his adult protagonists. Hybridising genres – horror, sci-fi, fairy-tale, political, war. Likes to question rule and order. Fairy-tales for adults – monster films as serious art forms – children as victims of violence – no safe passage for children – fantastical to say something about the historical. He sees art as alchemy – fusing different elements to create art – lowbrow and highbrow influences – Spanish and Mexican history.
Aesthetics • Despite fantasy, aesthetics are real and humanised – blood for the fairies – Del Toro prefers practical effects over CGI. • Props and scenery authentic to 1944 – using small canvases to tell bigger stories, such as the attention to detail of the clocks in Vidal’s room – obsession with order. • Aesthetic of facial trauma – the peasant’s death, Vidal’s death. • Vidal is brutal and the epitome of evil – torture is like from a psycho-horror film. • Paganism – moss-covered labyrinth, the tree of Ofelia’s resurrection. • Del Toro’s use of colour palettes and lighting to establish different worlds – Vidal’s world is cold blues and greys to represent something mechanical and rigid – natural world is green with the brown clothes of the rebels who hide in the forests but sometimes blends with the red and oranges of the fantasy world – fantasy world dominated by oranges, yellows and golds to represent something magical, idealistic and ethereal, however this is more of a coping mechanism for Ofelia. • Pale Man similar to Goya’s painting of Saturn devouring his son – madness and sorrow, as well as fascism. • Moral grey areas and ambiguity – role reversals. • Challenges gender stereotypes with Ofelia’s rebellion juxtaposing her mother’s passivity. • Cinematography is restless and fluid – questing and questioning nature of children. • Symbolism used – fig tree for fallopian imagery – time as a metaphor for mortality.
Fairy-tales • Ofelia is not a traditional fairy-tale princess – she is independent – obsessed with fairy-tales, so she creates her own to deal with the brutal reality around her. • The Princess and the Frog referenced through the frog but it is more malevolent – also Ofelia’s royal ancestry. • Alice in Wonderland – Ofelia’s dress and her finding herself in a strange world with fantastical creatures – while Alice wants to return home, Ofelia wants to emigrate to the fantasy world. • Snow White – both she and Ofelia have a connection to nature – Ofelia’s connection to the Faun and the fairies.
Influences • • • Gothic writers – Bram Stoker’s Dracula and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Late 19 th Century painters, such as Goya’s painting of Saturn devouring his son. Surrealist photographers - Man Ray and Joel Peter Witkin – seen in Ofelia’s bleeding at the start and her death at the end. Social Realism Photographers - Robert Capa and Henri Cartier-Bresson – seen through the poverty and war-torn Spain. Many Victorian fairy-tales – Rapunzel, Cinderella, Snow Queen, King of the Golden River, Rose and the Ring, Story of the Three Bears, The Golden Key. • The Spirit of the Beehive (1973, director: Victor Erice, Spain) – A female protagonist who develops and imaginative space, due to political contexts and personal trauma. • Children’s illustrators - Arthur Rackham and Frank Franzetta. • Comic book artists and video-game developers - Mike Mignola and Dark Horse Comics. • The Diary of Anne Frank – Child escaping through story, tragic end. • References to mythology. • Alice in Wonderland. • Spanish Army symbolism – anarchist propaganda. • 70 s Slasher films – Halloween, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Town That Dreaded Sundown.
Social, Political, Historical Contexts • Female oppression reflects issues women faced in this Patriarchal era. • A priest dismisses the rebels’ situation – a comment on the complicit Catholic Church – corruption of ruling elite. • Admiration of the spirituality of religion. • Negative depiction of fascism. • Rebels are resourceful and determined and associated with the natural world. • Mercedes’ love of children suggests tenderness and a celebration of childish things. • 1944 Spain – effects of the Civil War are still felt – Fascism ruled Spain until Franco’s death in 1975. • Pan’s Labyrinth the second part of a trilogy about post Civil War Spain.
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