Pans Labyrinth Themes Fascism and its effect on

Pan’s Labyrinth

Themes • Fascism (and it’s effect on Spanish identity) • Good versus Evil • Childhood & National Innocence (and the loss of it) • Reality and Fantasy • Legacy – continuing the bloodline • Death / Rebirth • Organisations vs Free Thought • Conformity (passive engagement) vs Rebellion (active engagement) • Creation versus Destruction • Restoration of the Family unit • Women in crisis • Rejection of structured Religions • Oppression (physical, psychological and emotional) and Control versus Freedom

Gender Representation • Women: Responsible for creating and saving life – which is why Carmen gives birth to her son and Mercedes saves the lives of the rebels from Vidal. It is also metaphorically though as Ofelia – does the same through her own imagination and re-birth. Carmen and Mercedes reflect 2 sides of Ofelia – the need to conform to fit into new family’s life and rebel against fascism. Carmen creates a negative representation of women whilst Ofelia and Mercedes create a positive representation of women. Mercedes is the final Girl so could eb considered to have masculine traits. • Men: They are responsible for the civil unrest of the real-world and backdrop of the film’s narrative. Vidal and Garces represent right wing authoritarian and fascism whilst Pedro the left-wing liberal rebellion, creates a binary opposite between them. It is the clash between all men within the plot which leads to war. Captain Vidal is obsessed by his fathers’ military exploits and is equally determined that his own son (he refuses to believe the child can be anything other than a male) is born close to him. The health of his sick wife is of only secondary importance, and he doesn’t care as long as his son is okay. Indeed he scolds her for discussing their romance in public and is equally dismissive of his stepdaughter, Ofelia. The final scene where he tells the rebels that his son must know who he was (which is a reference to his own father & what time he died) shows the final exhaustion of the patriarchy he represents, as Mercedes tells him that his son will never know who he was. Vidal creates a negative representation of men, which is ironic as Vidal is killed by Pedro Mercedes, despite their perceived strength of character.

Representation of family, age and reality • Family: Ofelia’s family is restored through out the film and starts apart but ends up together, but only in her reality. This is presented through Ofelia’s happiness to having a brother and makes her seem like she has her whole family with her, even though she is missing her dad and her mum. • Age: There is a innocence of youth which is brought across through Ofelia. It makes her seem more relatable and allows us as the audience to connect with her emotionally. She creates a bright, happier and uplifting atmosphere in her imagination, especially in the ending scene, and contrasts with the adult world. In the real world we have the troubles of war, death, fascism as well as broken family relationships. This creates an unhappy environment for us as the audience but also for Ofelia wich explains why she creates her own worlds in her imagination. • Reality: The fantasy element of the film is often rough across in bright and uplifting colours such as yellow and golds, giving it magical aspect, but the real world is shown across through low key lighting as well as dark and gloomy settings making the scenes more tense and unnerving. Sometimes the lighting is similar such as in the pale man sequence and Vidal’s dinner part as well as the ending where there is a merge of bright and dark colours suggesting that the real and fantasy world are the same.

Representation of politics/nationality • Politics / Nationality: The narrative of the film attempts to establish and discuss the complicated nature of Spanish identity and how history has influenced this international perception. It is also about being oppressed and what is being resisted rather than just a political anti-fascist allegory. During Vidal’s dinner party when the Mayor states “one ration card per family is not enough”, and the priest replies “he has already saved their souls. Their body does not matter. ” suggests the ignorance of those institutions who profited (and subsequently turned a ‘blind eye’ towards the inequalities associated to a Spanish fascist regime) from the ultra right-wing mode of politics. The narrative within this film addresses the collective national shame and consequences of this political approach.

Autuerism • An obsession with fantastical horror – including fantastical beasts. • He considers himself an outsider in terms of his own artistic integrity - Del Toro is a Mexican / Spanish filmmaker in an American context. • Allusions to Victor Frankenstein - he creates pastiche from used, diverse, discarded sources leading to monstrous results. • A fascination with the ambiguity / role reversal of heroism and villainy - some monsters (despite their hideous appearances) are misunderstood and alienated. Oppositely, some humans (despite appearing normal or attractive) have a morality that is hideous. • Del Toro’s work has a certain commonality in terms of narrative tropes - such as the figure of the child as a cipher witness (Pan’s Labyrinth, The Devil’s Backbone, even Elisa in The Shape of Water - although adult - portrays a certain child-like innocence and perspective, etc. ). • Del Toro does tend to Hybridise the genres of his films (Horror, Sci-Fi, Fairy-tale, Political, War, etc. ). Most contain some reference to the fantastical however visceral or real his subtext to create juxtaposition • He is a rebel and likes to undermine / 0 question the nature of rule and order - Fascist rule, logic, simplistic binaries of good and evil – catalyst of dark chaos, disorder and madness. • Creates fairy-tales for adult audiences - Monster movie as serious art-form / Bleak or ambivalent denouements / Children as victims of violence / graphically portrayed / danger is real not imaginary / refusal to allow safe passage for child characters. He uses the fantastical to say something profound about the historical. • Del Toro sees art as alchemy (transmuting / combining base metals (separate genres) into a stronger by-product (a hybrid genre)). Consider: his combination of lowbrow (slasher films, comic books, horror) and highbrow influences (Goya paintings, surrealist and social realism photography, Gothic allegories, Spanish and Mexican historical context) that fuse by subversive methods to create masterful art.

Aesthetics • The aesthetic is very much real and humanised. The fairies, in particular, obtain humanistic characteristics; when they die we see a lot of blood and guts for example. The realistic aesthetic could be due to Guillermo Del Toro’s love of practical effects over CGI so the physicality makes it much more real. • Pan’s Labyrinth also highlights the cruelty of the Spanish war by using small canvases to tell bigger stories. The props and scenery are authentic to the 1944 time period that it takes place in and scenery in particular is effective in this film as a great level of detail is put into the intricately constructed scenery such as the Captain’s room featuring clocks and machinery in the background to reflect his rigidly structured life. • Facial trauma also plays a massive part in the film. Early in the film we see an innocent peasant’s face smashed with a bottle by the Captain which ultimately ends in his death. Later in the film Mercedes cuts Vidal right at his mouth and then towards the end he is shot in the cheek. This idea is also used in many others of Del Toro’s films such as ‘The Devils Backbone’, where we frequently see Santi with a bleeding whole in his head. This re-occurring theme is used by Del Toro to emphasise the brutality to the audience as well as provoking empathy. • Another motif, is paganism. The moss-covered labyrinth ruins, the standing stones, & the tree beneath which Ofelia finds the toad & from which blooms her own resurrection all suggest a sophisticated and elemental pagan past, which are now acting as portals to the fairy kingdom. • Del Toro also relies by blue and grey cold colours similar to those of a machine and steel metals; these colour palettes and lighting are used to establish distinctly different worlds. The captain’s world is defined are used to present the mechanical rule of the fascists. The nature world is dominated by the greens of the natural world and is intertwined with the rebels as they are wearing brown clothing and hiding in the forest The fantasy world is dominated by yellows, oranges and gold colours, creating happiness and hope as well as youthfulness with Ofelia.

Fairy tales • Ofelia is an independent non-traditional fairy tale princess - she is obsessed with fairy stories constructing her own fairy world in order to deal with the brutality surrounding her. • The Princess and the Frog: the most common similarity is the presence of the anthropomorphic frog (although the amphibian within Pan’s Labyrinth is more malevolent). • Alice in Wonderland: the main similarity is the dress worn by Ofelia within Pan’s Labyrinth - but Ofelia also finds herself in a strange world of fantastical creatures. Oppositely though Alice wants to return to normality whereas Ofelia wishes to emigrate to fantasy. • Snow White: The main connection between Snow White and Ofelia is that they are both one’s with the nature. Ofelia has a strong connection to the faun and the fairies which inhabit the ancient forest / labyrinth which play a central role to the plot.

Influences • Gothic Writers (including Bram Stoker – Dracula and Mary Shelley – Frankenstein, etc. ) • Painters - predominantly late 19 th century (including Francisco Goya – Saturn Devouring His Son (1823), Hieronymus Bosch - Symbolist) • Surrealist Photographers (including Man Ray, Joel Peter Witkin, etc. relating to the opening scene of bleeding - and dying Ofelia) • Social Realism Photographers (including Robert Capa, Henri Cartier-Bresson, etc. representing the poverty and war-torn nature of Spain) • Victorian fairy tales (including the Brothers Grimm - Rapunzel, Charles Perrault - Cinderella, Hans Christian Andersen – Snow Queen, John Ruskin – King of the Golden River, William M. Thackeray – Rose and the Ring, Robert Southey – Story of the Three Bears, George Mac. Donald / The Golden Key, etc. displayed through the fairy-tale context of Pan’s Labyrinth and Devil’s Backbone). • The Spirit of the Beehive (1973, director: Victor Erice, Spain) Central girl protagonist who develops an imaginative space in response to dramatic political contexts (Spanish Civil War) and personal trauma (echoes Pan’s Labyrinth). • Children’s Illustrators (Arthur Rackham, Frank Franzetta, etc. setting the fairy tale context). • Comic book artists and video-game developers (Mike Mignola, Dark Horse Comics, etc. ) • The Diary of Anne Frank - Ofelia as literary war figure. Child escaping through story. Tragic end for the Protagonist. • References to mythology relating to Faun’s, fairies, magic toads, etc. • Alice in Wonderland - Ofelia as an Alice-type figure going down the fantastical rabbit hole into a realm of adventure, heavily influenced by the silly and surreal. • Spanish Army symbolism - CNT anarchist propaganda, 1937 Civil War context. • 1970 s Slasher B-Movies (including Halloween (Texas Chainsaw Massacre, A Bay of Blood, The Last House on the Left, The Town That Dreaded Sundown, etc. there are horror elements in Pan’s Labyrinth – purposeful grotesquery).

Social, Political and Historical Context • The representation of women is evidence of the social problems women faced in this patriarchal and macho era. Women are oppressed in a show of hyper / toxic masculinity. • Del Toro uses the cinematic importance of a banquet to heighten the corruption of the local middle classes and ruling elite. This complicity of the Catholic church is later echoed in future sequences. • Despite his criticisms of Catholicism as a dogma and institution it is clear that Del Toro admires the spirituality of his native religion (he himself is a ‘lapsed Catholic’) – in a later film Crimson Peak, a ghost story, he commented on his belief in ghosts. • The period featured, 1944 in Spain, is clearly a period where the rumblings from the Spanish Civil War were still being felt despite the war itself having finished in 1939. Franco’s support of Hitler falsely suggests Spain’s direct involvement in World War 2 - although he did send volunteer forces to aid the Germans during the war. Fascism continued to be the predominant political system until Franco’s death in 1975. • It is clear to see that Del Toro is interested in this time period because it is the second film of a trilogy with uses this time period and the third one has not been made yet, even though Del Toro still says he is going to make another one to finish the trilogy he wanted to make. • A more realist political representation is that the rebels who are presented as resourceful and determined are also inextricably linked to the natural environment of Spain’s heartland. • Mercedes has a love of children which suggests a tenderness and a celebration of all things childish – indeed, unlike Ofelia’s weak and dismissive mother, Mercedes gives advice on the handling of fauns.