PAN'S LABYRINTH

Pan's Labyrinth publicity poster and film still (© Guillermo del Toro/Telecinco Cinema/Estudios Picasso/Tequila Gang/Esperanto Filmoj/Sententia Entertainment/Warner Bros)

On 30 May 2017, I watched the Spanish fantasy/war movie Pan's Labyrinth (with English subtitles), directed by the highly-acclaimed Mexican film-maker Guillermo del Toro, and I can honestly say that it has been some time indeed since I have been so emotionally involved in a film. However, this one incorporated so effectively and so evocatively such a diversity of universal themes that it would have been impossible for me not to have been.

[Indeed, it was after watching this mesmerising movie that I instantly became a del Toro devotee and I have since purposefully sought out, viewed, and thoroughly enjoyed a number of other films directed and/or produced by him. These include The Shape of Water, which I have already reviewed here on Shuker In MovieLand, and others that I'll be reviewing in later SIML blog posts – so look out for those too.]

Originally released in 2006, Pan's Labyrinth deftly intertwines the grim reality of bloody aggression in 1944 Spain between Franco-supporting Falangist nationalists and a forest-protected outpost of Maquis republican guerilla rebels with a living fairytale featuring a young girl named Ofelia (played with gamine charm by Ivana Baquero).

 

Living through this time of great civil unrest with her loving mother Carmen (Ariadna Gil) but cruel Falange officer stepfather Captain Vidal (Sergi López), one fateful day Ofelia finds herself led by a stick insect-impersonating fairy into a forest-hidden labyrinth. Once inside, she discovers that it conceals a huge Pan-like faun (Doug Jones, who would go on to play the gill man in del Toro's multi-Academy Award-winning The Shape of Water a decade later). It tells her that she is really a princess, and gives her three tasks to complete, promising her immortality and her permanent return to her rightful kingdom if she succeeds in completing all of these tasks.

This part-mystical part-parable movie contains strange magic and dark fantasy, including not only the faun and shape-shifting fairies that reminded me of Ray Harryhausen's winged homunculus in The Golden Voyage of Sinbad, but also a gigantic subterranean toad, a screaming writhing mandrake root, and a hideous child-devouring humanoid monster known as the Pale Man (again played by Doug Jones), whose eyes are not set in his face but instead are inset within the palms of his claw-fingered hands. Nor is that all.

Effortlessly transcending barriers of any kind, Pan's Labyrinth also both mercifully and mercilessly showcases beauty and barbarism; the misery and futility of warfare; self-sacrifice for the greater good of others; plus haunting music; and profound sadness – so much profound, pervasive sadness. As you'd expect, the traumatic scene in which Ofelia's mother dies is one that I could scarcely even look up at, let alone watch.

But just like the original one in Greek mythology, this cinematic Pandora's Box also contains hope, sometimes faint but always flickering, and with that the viewer is ultimately sustained. Pan's Labyrinth is a spellbinding masterpiece of a movie, and one whose images and emotions will remain with me, I'm sure, for a long time to come. Check out this trailer for it here, and you'll see what I mean.

And to view a complete listing of all of my Shuker In MovieLand blog's other film reviews and articles (each one instantly accessible via a direct clickable link), please click HERE! 

Publicity poster from Pan's Labyrinth featuring the grotesque and thoroughly terrifying cannibalistic Pale Man (© Guillermo del Toro/Telecinco Cinema/Estudios Picasso/Tequila Gang/Esperanto Filmoj/Sententia Entertainment/Warner Bros)