Pan’s Labyrinth
Disclaimer:
The movie I’ll be reviewing this week is rated: R
This review contains adult content, swearing, and of course: Spoilers!
Definitely a divergence of style from some of the films I’ve been looking at lately, but still one I always kinda liked: Pan’s Labyrinth! Honestly, I’ve only ever seen this movie once, and that was also years ago, so I can’t say a whole lot in this intro being as I don’t remember a whole lot from it either. Of course the biggest things that always stood out to me was it’s sense of discovery and creative/ambitious creature effects which are instantly iconic in horror media. So iconic to the point where everyone feels the need to reference them at some point or another. Legit, these creature designs appear in many different places from other horror fare to comedic parodies of the original source material. We’ll get more into that later, but one thing that I always have the hardest time remembering is the story.
Yeah, despite this being an easily referenced film, I can’t for the life of me remember how the story goes. I have a vague recollection of it having something to do with a war, soldiers, fighting, and a young girl coping with the absence of her father by escaping to a fantasy world, but that’s about it. To be fair to the movie, I may just not have been paying attention that well the first time I saw it. The details are definitely a blur to me though, and as you may have guessed, I’m writing this before I’ve re-watched the movie so you can get my most honest feelings on remembering the film before I give you an accurate breakdown. I feel like I should also come clean and tell y’all that the reason I decided to cover this movie this week is because today is my Mapa’s Birthday and they told me that of the movies we have in our DVD library, this is one of their favorites. In honor of one of my parents, let’s dive in.
I would put jokes and references here, but I don’t want to come across as ignorant (at least any more ignorant than I already have), so I’ll just say: “Here’s Pan’s Labyrinth!”
Oh, I should also point out before we officially get started that since this movie was originally filmed in Spanish and even the original title is El Laberinto del Fauno, expect a lot of subtitles in the images I find. I could’ve gotten a dubbed version in English to review, but if I’ve learned nothing else from anime, it’s that subs are almost always better than dubs. Also, I feel like it would make things a bit more complicated to review a dubbed version of a live-action film since I would have to contrast the physical acting of the original cast with the English voice overs and it would just be too annoying for me. If some other time y’all would like me to compare the original subbed and English dubbed versions of the film I’d definitely be down for that, just shoot me an email and I’ll make it happen (you can do so on the Contact page of this website), but this review will be the original Spanish subbed.
Well, this is a happy start to this movie.
Literally the first shot of the film is a dying child…cool. While this is probably jarring to most viewers (me included), I will say that it does set the tone for the film immediately. Throughout the entire rest of the movie’s runtime, it carries with it a harsh and melancholic tone that totally justifies this opening shot. For real, all of the characters in this movie go through some tough things so you can’t say the movie didn’t prepare you for that going in. Not only that, but it really does make you want to see these characters happy just so someone can friggin’ smile which creates more complexity and layers for the ending, but of course we’ll get to that later. Also, the background music for the scene is a lullaby that we’ll see circulate throughout the rest of the movie as well which is pretty clever.
For now though, we’re given a brief bout of exposition where a narrator describes to us a simple fable. It tells us of a princess from long ago who lived in a prosperous Underground Realm free from the troubles of mortals until she wanted to see the surface (I really can’t seem to escape Disney right now, can I?). Once she went above ground, the brightness of the sun blinded her causing her to lose all her memories while the surface also made her mortal until she grew sick and eventually died. Her father, the king, believed that her soul would eventually return, possibly in another body, and he would wait for her until the end of time. You know, being immortal and all that. Right after all this, we’re introduced to our main character in a car with her mother in Spain, 1944 named Ofelia (played by Ivana Baquero) whom we previously saw lying on the ground dying. Knowing that information right out the gate kinda makes me want to see this happen though:
Así que...Soy yo. Probablemente te estés preguntando cómo terminé en una situación como esta, pero te advierto que es una película larga.
Translation:
So…this is me. You’re probably wondering how I ended up in a situation like this, but be warned it’s a long movie.
If only this were a dark comedy. Anyway, I really like how this fairy tale is essentially the baseline for the entire film and it comes back into play in several interesting and visual ways throughout the movie. At its core, this film is a fairy tale intended for an adult audience complete with graphic violence, the rawest evil of humanity, and disturbing imagery, and it reminds you of that every step of the way.
In the car with our main character, we’re also introduced to her mother Carmen (played by Ariadna Gil) and we’re given some preliminary character and plot development with Ofelia and how she has a propensity for fairy tales and fantasy, Carmen is currently with child and going through a difficult pregnancy, and they’re in the process of traveling to an outpost where Ofelia’s step-father is commanding Spanish soldiers after the Spanish Civil War to hunt down and kill what remains of the Rebellion. After Carmen feels the need to puke, they stop the car briefly and Ofelia is introduced to a small insect friend. She feels the need to refer to this friend as a fairy, however, Carmen calls Ofelia back to the car and we officially meet Ofelia’s step-father Captain Vidal (played by Sergi López) at the outpost who’s quite possibly one of the worst human beings on the planet.
Notice the straightening of the gloves. Let the hate sink in.
I think the main point behind this character was to have him represent the worst of humanity in general. Sure the entire time he thinks he’s the one doing right, he’s merely clearing the way for a new “Free Spain,” but he’s not afraid to hurt every person he comes into contact with along the way in order to achieve it. Also, most fairy tales have an exaggerated character such as this one in order to make their message clearer, much like with Disney’s version of Claude Frollo from The Hunchback of Notre Dame. That film makes it clear from the outset that it’s a story about a man and a monster and we eventually find out by the end that Quasimodo is the man and Frollo is the monster even though their appearances would suggest the opposite. Don’t get me wrong though, Sergi López does such a good job playing this character that I would legit need someone to restrain me from punching him square in the face if I ever met him in real life. You will hate him by the end of the movie.
In these moments, we’re also briefly introduced to Vidal’s personal assistant Mercedes (played by Maribel Verdú) and the on-site medical professional Dr. Ferreiro (played by Álex Angulo). Of course they’ll become more important later in the film, but for now they’re just kinda there. I think I prefer this a bit more than if it was made obvious from the start that they would eventually become major players in the story. There are a lot of moments like this that treat the progression of everything in a casual sense which I really enjoy because it makes the fantastical moments that we see later seem more real, especially when Ofelia sees the fairy again and is shown the location of el Laberinto del Fauno. We also get a sense for the reckless and childlike behavior that Ofelia will continue to exhibit in later scenes when she drops her books and hat in favor of chasing a bug, much to mine and the audience’s annoyance, but that’s later. In the end she’s still a kid, but that won’t stop me from pointing out when she does something estúpido.
Later that night we see the good doctor give Carmen some medicine, Ofelia eavesdrops on Dr. Ferreiro and Mercedes having a conversation about how they’re going to help the guerilla rebels in the surrounding forest which ups the tension, and Ofelia tells her unborn brother a story to calm him before bed. Much like I said before, a lot of these scenes have a casual feel to them and are allowed to just be little moments especially when Ofelia is cuddling up to Carmen as you would expect a mother and daughter at that age to do. Also, the story Ofelia tells to her brother is the perfect thesis for the whole movie.
She tells a story of a rose which blooms every night at sunset at the top of a mountain that would grant whoever plucked it the gift of immortality. The only caveat is that the surrounding mountain was covered in poisonous thorns which scared any potential immortals away, so no one dared to go near it. As a result, the rose was forgotten and no one on Earth was granted its wonderful gift. You see, on the commentary track for the film, the director Guillermo del Toro explained his concept of immortality. In his eyes, someone who is “immortal” is someone who doesn’t care for the consequences of death. So by climbing that mountain regardless of the potential danger to your life, you are immortal to him. Naturally, this concept is spotlighted very obviously once you make it to the end of the film knowing this information, but for now we’ll leave it a mystery. Also if you’re reading this review before watching the film, I’d recommend turning back now. Reading these reviews are not a substitute for actually watching a movie, I hope you know that, and this is definitely one I’d recommend.
Meanwhile, Captain Vidal is called to deal with two people who were caught nearby the outpost. They claim to be father and son, farmers who were just out hunting wabbits in the area, but Captain Vidal doesn’t like their tone. Especially the son’s, whom he brutalizes with a bottle before shooting both of them dead. This scene is easily the most graphically violent in the movie and as the film progresses the violence only gets more and more downplayed to emphasize how meaningless the soldiers’ fight really is. Also, this scene was based on an oral account of a true event that happened shortly after the Spanish Civil War where a fascist soldier ended up killing two innocent civilians, one by bashing their nose in with the butt of his gun. I say this because in the movie, of course the Captain only searches the rest of the farmers’ belongings after he killed them to see that they were in fact telling the truth, making their deaths that much more cruel and meaningless much like the real life heartless killings. I won’t give you a .gif of that because I cringe up whenever I see it myself, you’ll just have to watch the movie to see it in all its bloody glory.
Back with Ofelia, expect a lot of this back and forth from here on. Most of the movie is cutting (or more accurately: wiping) from the side story involving the real world to the main magical story involving Ofelia and back again. Despite a lot of touch-and-go story telling like this, it still manages to balance it’s stories well and it doesn’t feel cluttered at all. Each of the characters have enough time to breathe and develop and most of what’s happening on screen is mirrored in both stories to keep things more focused while also playing up the aspect of the magical world possibly not being real and instead just in Ofelia’s imagination. Speaking of the story, Ofelia gets another visit in the night from the fairy who, I’ll just say, has a very progressive look compared to most other fairies I’ve seen. That’s right, fairies can look like insects movie, tell the world!
Or not.
Yeah we’re just gonna immediately conform to fairy stereotypes before leading Ofelia into the labyrinth’s center for the first time. Jokes aside, it is still a pretty neat design that’s clearly born from nature and the transformation sequence from insect to fairy is pretty cool too. We then meet the Faun for the first time (played by Doug Jones, but voiced by Pablo Adán) where he looks decrepit and worn with moss growing all over him and his teeth all dirty.
This is probably also the best time just to discuss the Faun in general. One thing you may not notice upon your first viewing of the film is that the more the Faun appears throughout the movie the younger he seems to get where his hair becomes more colorful and vibrant, the wrinkles on his face disappear, his teeth become clean and straight, the moss on his body vanishes, and he loses the twitchy movements he began the film with. This is done to represent how Ofelia finding him, interacting with him, and doing his trials is giving him energy since he was left to wither while she wasn’t around which further drives home the idea that Ofelia is the reincarnation of the lost princess of the Underground Realm. So many moments like this are sprinkled throughout the movie including the image of the Faun’s head appearing in multiple places, the most obvious being the entrance to the labyrinth, but also on the banisters inside the mill, and in the shape of the tree Ofelia finds the toad living under. I really enjoy when a film tells its story more through visual means as opposed to verbal means.
Something you also probably noticed is how the Faun is played by Doug Jones like I mentioned previously, but his voice was dubbed by Pablo Adán. You can tell that this was mostly done to make the Faun’s voice more creepy and make it seem like you may not always be able to trust him because in traditional folklore, fauns are actually neutral creatures. They’re meant to represent the Earth and nature as a whole which ebbs and flows in whatever direction it wants which we also see in the Faun’s actions throughout the film. When we look at Doug Jones’ performance as the Faun as well, his work was not easy at all. Not only did he have to act underneath all that make-up, but he also had to read his lines in a language he didn’t speak (although he did put in the work to learn them) which was also an archaic version of said language to emphasize the Faun’s age, and he needed to act alongside Ivana Baquero while having practically no way of hearing her. As it turns out, the headpiece Doug Jones had to wear as the Faun restricted his hearing so much that he had to strain to hear his co-star while acting with her and make it seem like his responses were believable and conversational. All that being said, you wouldn’t be able to tell all of that by watching this which speaks to Doug Jones’ talent.
While we’re on the subject of difficulty for the actors, Doug Jones was not the only one who had challenges to overcome on set. For example: Sergi López was faced with the task of hitting specific physical beats for his character often while waiting for the camera to get into a specific position while still making his actions seem deliberate and natural which was much different from what he was used to when it comes to acting. This is also something you’ll notice when watching the film is that in pretty much every shot, the camera is never entirely stationary. It’s always moving at least slightly, not in a Blair Witch disorienting kind of way exactly, but at least to the point where if you’re paying close attention it’s almost like you can feel the cam-op breathing. I’m still not entirely sure what the intended purpose behind this decision was, but it does give the film a sense of life that not many other movies have.
Anyway, I’m pretty sure you came here to hear me give a review, so let’s get back to that.
The Faun ends up giving Ofelia what he calls the “Book of Crossroads” which will tell her the path she’s supposed to take in the trials (only if she opens it when she’s by herself though). We also get more reasons to hate Vidal because we then see him shaving in his private quarters while listening to a vinyl record. I don’t care what anyone says, whenever I see some asshole in movies casually listening to a vinyl record by themselves, I immediately hate them. It definitely doesn’t help because I know I have my own personal collection of vinyl records, but whenever I see this in movies, it’s usually intended to get across how annoyingly pompous and arrogant a character is which just makes me hate them with a passion.
That vinyl is a musical slave to this man! Tell me he wouldn’t call it that.
We see here how Vidal is overly obsessed with small details, such as the hair on his face, how shiny his boots are, and earlier with how his watch is working. He’s a complete control freak who needs everything to bend to his will, which also explains why he wouldn’t be able to notice how people like Dr. Ferreiro and Mercedes have been working against him for so long. Speaking of Mercedes, she gives us a brief shot of her working in the kitchen and setting up Chekhov’s Knife for later in the movie until she goes upstairs to help set up Ofelia’s bath. Carmen got her a nice new dress to impress everyone at the dinner party that’s happening later that night, but Ofelia seems more interested in the book she just got which is totally fair. If I got visited by a faun and was told that I was the reincarnation of a magical princess I wouldn’t care about some stupid dinner party either.
Back with Vidal and Mercedes, the mill only just got a stockpile of goods to store in their storeroom because Vidal wants to lure the guerilla rebels in the surrounding forest to him for supplies. Mercedes gives the key to the room to Vidal and tells him that it’s the only copy which is a total lie and I’ll just take this opportunity to say that Mercedes is awesome (this’ll become clearer later). This is also where we start to see some similarities between what’s happening in reality and what’s happening in Ofelia’s fantasy world. As Vidal and the rest of his soldiers set out to investigate a pillar of smoke in the distant forest, Ofelia sets out on her first trial to retrieve a key from the belly of a toad living under a dying tree. The reason the tree is dying is because the toad is sapping the life from it from underneath, and you could make the argument that Vidal and his soldiers are doing a similar thing themselves. By hunting down the rebels in the forest (something they definitely didn’t need to do since the war is over), they’re destroying the environment in the process by turning it into an unnecessary battleground. That and the visuals support this idea by quickly transitioning back and forth between both stories by utilizing vertical wipes as if the screen were a page in a book while Ofelia reads the instructions for her first task.
Also, we get some more returning Faun imagery with the tree being shaped like his head.
Meanwhile with Vidal, he and his team of soldiers discover an abandoned rebel camp with the same parcel Dr. Ferreiro gave Mercedes lying next to the campfire with a vial of antibiótico (that’s antibiotics) still inside of it and a lottery ticket not far away. Vidal takes this opportunity to threaten any rebels who may be listening by screaming into the forest like a jackass, though with him it’s not hard to look like a jackass. Ofelia on the other hand removed her nice dress her mother got for her to enter the hole in the tree and confront the toad by forcing it to swallow three stones in order to puke up the key she needs for the Faun. I should probably also mention that the CG doesn’t always blend the greatest in the movie. You can see a pretty good example of this with the toad and Ofelia at the bottom of the tree together. Sure the basis for the toad was a puppet that they actually constructed on set, but what I mean is that they gave it CG touch-ups that are pretty obvious to spot while watching. Not to say that the visuals still aren’t creative though especially after the toad literally pukes its guts out even if it doesn’t look entirely real. Unfortunately Ofelia gets covered in mud, bugs, and crap during this whole ordeal, which ruins her shoes and eventually she comes out from under the tree to discover that her dress also got ruined after getting blown off the branch she hung it up on. The Ranger’s not gonna like that, Yogi. She stumbles back to the mill while everyone else has their dinner party without her.
If you pay close attention, you’ll notice that this scene is later paralleled in the Pale Man sequence that Ofelia has later with a long dining table full of food, a faceless monster at the head, and a square shaped fireplace behind it. This is in part to show similarities between the fantasy world and the real one and give a sense of validation to the fantasy world making it seem even more real. At the table, Vidal reveals more of his assholetry by talking about how he wants to be here hunting down rebels because he feels as if it’s his right to do so while also insulting Carmen for telling the story of how they met, and denying the existence of his father’s watch establishing a deeper connection to it. What I like about this is how we constantly see Vidal checking his watch throughout the movie making it clear how much he cares about it and how much it means to him. Eventually Ofelia makes it home with the help of Mercedes, since she was fresh off sending signals to the rebels, and Carmen is not happy about what she did to her dress.
So Ofelia gets sent to bed without supper for these transgressions, and here we also catch a bit of a glimpse of her past when Carmen asks her if she’s ever going to learn to behave. We get the sense from here that disobeying is just something that comes naturally to Ofelia, that she’s a person more inclined to trust herself than anyone else. This’ll eventually lead to some dumb moments on her part, but it also has a few perks too as we’ll see later. When Carmen says she disrespected Vidal though, Ofelia doesn’t care one bit as we see with this pretty funny shot of her smirking like a little shit.
You don’t need dialogue, that face says it all.
Not long after, she gets lead by the fairy to deliver the key to the Faun only for him to tell her that she’s going to need it herself for the upcoming task. Well wasn’t that helpful?! The next morning, the soldiers start handing out supplies to the families that were present at the dinner party the previous night while Ofelia takes another look in her book (Reading Rainbow!). It starts to have its time of the month though which also doubles as Faun head imagery only to reveal that in the other room Carmen had an…accident.
I think the thing I like the most about the fantastical elements of this story is that you could reasonably explain them away logically. While that wasn’t the director’s intent when making this film, you could still watch the movie that way, and I especially enjoy ambiguous stories that allow the audience to draw their own conclusions. We’ll see more of that in the film later on, but for now you could assume that Ofelia just got a bad feeling being away from her mother after seeing her sweating heavily while sleeping not long before getting out of bed with her and also hearing her moaning in pain from the next room over as opposed to getting a vision from a book. Of course Ofelia calls in Vidal for help who calls in Dr. Ferreiro who instructs the Captain that Carmen needs to be kept on constant bed rest while Ofelia gets moved to another room to give Carmen space to recover. It’s here that Ofelia also gets some alone time with Mercedes as she’s moving rooms and she admits that she knows Mercedes is working with the rebels after having seen her private conversation with Dr. Ferreiro and Mercedes signalling the rebels. Since Ofelia likes Mercedes though, she promises not to tell anyone. They’re like this the two of them: BFFs, Twinkies, peas in a pod, people who need to rely on each other to survive a sociopathic captain and his army of stooges. That and we also get the origin of the lullaby as Mercedes hums it to Ofelia to calm her down. It’s kinda funny though how Mercedes admits she doesn’t know the words to it so she just hums instead.
Later that night, Mercedes gets with Dr. Ferreiro and takes some more supplies to the rebels together while Ofelia gets a visit from the Faun in her new room. The Faun is slightly annoyed with her for not having gotten started on the second task yet, but since Ofelia admits that her mother isn’t doing well, the Faun gives her a mandrake root (which we previously saw being chopped up by the kitchen staff in a previous scene) and tells her to put it in a bowl of fresh milk with two drops of blood. By putting this under her mother’s bed, she’ll start to get better. The Faun then gives Ofelia the run-down on what to expect in the second task where I can only assume Ofelia zones out for most of it because she doesn’t follow the rules very well from here on. You’d think that being in the presence of a magical creature would give her the motivation to pay attention, but apparently not.
We briefly cut back to Mercedes and Dr. Ferreiro in a forest cave with the rebels and of course: this guy -
He’s called El Tarta (played by Ivan Massagué), and outside of Mercedes, he’s probably my favorite character in the movie, mostly because I just feel so bad for him! Later we’ll see that become clearer, but for now he’s just kinda there. There’s another rebel here suffering with a gangrene infested leg named Frenchie (played by Gonzalo Uriarte) and Dr. Ferreiro is forced to amputate it. Luckily we cut away before having to witness the bulk of it, but it doesn’t make it any easier to watch the split second we do see. Meanwhile, Ofelia is getting ready to embark on this movie’s most iconic sequence: the Pale Man sequence. She grabs the chalk given to her by the Faun to trace a door in the wall (Adam and Barbara Maitland would be proud) and turns an hourglass upside down after stepping into the chamber even though she was supposed to do that immediately after opening the door. Once the hourglass runs out, Ofelia needs to have completed her mission and made it back inside her room safely, so she takes the rest of the Faun’s fairy friends inside for guidance. After taking her sweet ass time getting to the main chamber despite the fact we already established this is a timed trial (seriously, most of the problems with her is that she doesn’t know the meaning of the word “quick”) we see this:
Nope.
So the fairies tell Ofelia which tiny door she needs to use the key on. She deliberately disobeys them here, but in this instance it proves to be helpful since she picks the correct door and finds a dagger inside. However, despite the fact that Ofelia has been specifically instructed by the Faun not to eat anything on the table, the fact that time is still ticking on the hourglass, and the fact the fairies are screaming at her not to, Ofelia thinks now is the perfect time to eat a grape. Wow. Dumb. This also is an example of her disobeying instructions and it only causes more problems. Unsurprisingly, the Pale Man comes to life popping the eyeballs on the plate in front of him into his palm sockets.
Nope!
This image is instantly iconic and very well drawn out. As far as scenes go in the movie, this is definitely one of the best moments of suspense and tension it has to offer even if it could’ve easily been avoided if Ofelia wasn’t a dumbass. Speaking of her, even after the Pale Man gets up she eats a second grape! Bitch, move it or lose it! Her hesitation results in the Pale Man devouring two of the fairies alive while Ofelia watches and only now does she decide to run. Naturally, she took too long and the door closes, locking her inside the chamber with the Pale Man. To save herself, she grabs the chalk to draw herself a new exit, but the Pale Man is close behind.
NOPE!
Ofelia barely manages to escape with her life, and the life of one of the fairies, and she slumps down on her bed in shame. As she should. Back with Mercedes, Dr. Ferreiro and the rest of the rebels, Mercedes discusses with her brother Pedro (played by Roger Casamajor) her current situation with Vidal and ends up giving him a copy of the storeroom key so he can get as many supplies as he wants. Also, this happens:
I don’t really know what the point of this scene is, but it gets me to hate Vidal even more, so I guess it’s doing something right. Not only that, but Ofelia puts the mandrake root under Carmen’s bed and she starts to feel better according to Dr. Ferreiro. Her fever’s down and her breathing’s steady. Magic! Though again, you could explain this as just a chance rebound that coincidentally happened as soon as Ofelia placed the mandrake. Vidal also tells Dr. Ferreiro that, if at all possible, he’d prefer the doctor to save his son over his wife, because testosterone father-son bullshit. As if we needed more reasons to hate this guy. Vidal then walks outside to see an explosion in the distance and he goes to investigate with a team of soldiers. Ofelia also pleads with her unborn brother to spare their mother’s life while she’s sleeping which is a promise he doesn’t intend to keep.
The shades…damn this guy sucks.
At the sight of the train explosion, one of the engineers reveals that nothing was stolen in the blast. Curious. So, of course, another explosion takes place back at the mill as soon as we learn of this. Some of Vidal’s lackeys, Garcés and Serrano (played by Manolo Solo and César Vea), managed to corner a small group of rebels in the forest which they then proceed to dispatch of with ruthless efficiency. When everything is said and done, there’s only one remaining rebel survivor which they take back to the storeroom in the mill. Mercedes hears about this and goes to make sure it’s not her brother Pedro, and as it turns out, it’s:
El Tarta (Or as most Americans call him: the Stutterer)! Yay? At least it’s not Pedro.
So this is when all hope starts to get lost. We start off with this brutal torture scene with Vidal doing the deed himself to make El Tarta give him the information he wants. What makes it worse is that Vidal insults El Tarta for his stutter by offering him a chance to escape if he can count to three without stuttering. Sure he means it, but he knows El Tarta won’t be able to do it, which he doesn’t. It doesn’t stop me from feeling bad for the poor guy, because this entire movie, for the brief amount of time he’s on screen, he’s taken advantage of, tossed aside, and abused relentlessly! This all culminates in him wanting to end it all after Vidal has “had his way” with him. It only gets worse from here. Not only do we have the brutal torture scene (sure we don’t see the act, but we see the end result which is probably worse), we also have a moment where the Faun re-enters Ofelia’s room and yells at her for breaking the rules (which, fair) and condemns her to never return to the Underground Realm. Dr. Ferreiro ends up putting El Tarta out of his misery after the poor guy begs the doctor to do it. Vidal finds out Dr. Ferreiro is working with the rebels by comparing a vial of antibiotics in the doctor’s case to the one he found at the campsite and seeing that they’re the same. Vidal also catches Ofelia under Carmen’s bed checking on the mandrake and riles up Carmen to teach her a lesson, which she does by tossing the mandrake in the fire, causing Carmen to collapse on the floor in pain. Vidal goes back downstairs to see that Dr. Ferreiro killed El Tarta and he shoots the doctor because of it. Then we end this whole sequence with Carmen finally giving birth, but dying in the process. Things couldn’t possibly seem worse at this point!
This is what I mean when I say that this movie is very harsh. Although, at this point, the end of the Second Act, our characters’ spirits are at their lowest. Does it get better from here? …Kinda… Ofelia steals a leftover vial of sleeping aid from the late doctor’s case which you bet will come into play later, and Vidal has a sit-down with Mercedes. It’s about as tense as you would expect.
At this point, Vidal has gathered from El Tarta’s intel that there’s an insider at the mill giving them supplies and information. He’s essentially already determined it to be Mercedes, he just wants the opportunity to fuck with her a little bit. He not-so-subtly implies to her that she’s high on his suspect list by feeding El Tarta’s intel back to her, and also telling her to get him more alcohol from the storeroom. She immediately gets up to go grab it for him, but wait!
Busted.
He doesn’t try to arrest her there, mostly because he has a superiority complex (especially when it comes to women), so he let’s her go only for her to try to escape with Ofelia in the cold rainy night. They don’t get far, as shown through this awesomely staged moment:
This also calls back to the previous scene where Mercedes and Dr. Ferreiro met with the rebels in the woods the first time which is pretty neat. Of course they get taken back to the mill where Ofelia is confined to her room and Vidal gives the order to his soldiers that if anyone comes for her, they should shoot her. His own step-daughter. Christ this guy is the worst. I know I’ve said it a lot, but can you blame me? Screw this guy! Mercedes also gets tied up in the storeroom implying that she, much like El Tarta before her, is going to be tortured for information. However, while Vidal is taking his sweet time explaining everything he’s going to do, he has his back to her. This gives Mercedes the opportunity to cash in Chekhov’s Knife, cut through her ropes, and stab the shit out of Vidal!
Fuck him up! God I’m so tired of this fucker!
The only problem I have with this is: she doesn’t kill him. WHY?!!! Guillermo del Toro explains that the reason she doesn’t kill him is because her knife is too small. I call bullshit. She could’ve just stabbed him in the head repeatedly, like right in the back of his head to get him up out of there super quick and also buy her some more time to escape! That just makes no sense! Either way, she runs off into the woods and we’re given a brief moment of humor where Garcés is sitting next to the radio listening to the lottery announcements. As you may remember, they picked up that lottery ticket from the camp earlier in the movie, so he’s checking to see if he won which is a small thing but still pretty funny. Of course, Vidal storms out of the storeroom in not nearly enough pain and screams for Garcés and Serrano to bring Mercedes to him. This kicks off a brief chase where eventually Garcés and Serrano catch up with Mercedes in the woods on horseback. It looks like this is going to be her last stand until gunshots come out of the forest hitting Garcés four times in the chest, killing him. It’s nice to see at least a glimmer of hope come back into this movie again.
Eso es para que no vuelvan como zombis!
Odio cuando eso sucede!
Translation:
That’s so they don’t come back as zombies!
I hate it when that happens!
So now, surprisingly, the Faun revisits Ofelia in her room and decides to give her one last chance so long as she’s willing to follow everything he says without question. Also, this moment is really cute:
Especially after what we’ve been through in the past half hour, this was really needed.
What she needs to do is fetch her brother and bring him to el laberinto. That’s all the Faun tells Ofelia for now. Unfortunately for her, her brother is currently being kept in Vidal’s quarters, the same person who’s probably not too happy for having to stitch up his own sliced up face.
¿Quieres saber cómo tengo estas cicatrices?
Translation:
You wanna know how I got these scars?
Luckily, the Faun gave Ofelia some more chalk to break her way out of her locked room undetected and she makes her way down despite the danger. This is also the point that the director likes to cite as rock solid evidence that the fantasy world is real. How else would she have gotten out of her locked bedroom unless she made her own chalk door?Honestly, I see what he means by that. Unless she carefully climbed out the window. Eventually she manages to get to her brother when Vidal is called away to take a look at the surviving Serrano after the ambush in the woods. Ofelia also uses her stolen bottle of sleeping aid to spike Vidal’s latest glass of alcohol. It’s not looking good for Vidal as he learns that there were far more rebels than he had anticipated and they managed to take out the rest of his watchtowers scattered throughout the forest. His supplies and men are dwindling, so he’s gotta do something. He goes back to his quarters to finish his glass of alcohol which is when he notices Ofelia after an explosion goes off outside. By the way, she probably would’ve been fine if she just ran. What is with this girl and her sense of urgency? Even after he spots her and demands she give him her brother she still refuses to run until Vidal starts giving chase. Not only that, but when she spiked Vidal’s alcohol, she could’ve just poured the whole frickin’ bottle into his glass. Instead she only puts a few drops in. Why didn’t she do that? That would’ve easily solved her problem!
Either way, Vidal completes his transition into a fairy tale monster by chasing Ofelia down as the rebels lay siege to the mill. We also see Mercedes and a small group of rebels break into Ofelia’s bedroom to rescue her only to find her not there, so Ofelia would’ve technically been okay if she just stayed in her room. Ofelia gets chased deep into el laberinto by Vidal until she meets a dead end. Normally labyrinths wouldn’t have dead ends, but the director intended for this scene to show how el laberinto is helping Ofelia because the walls open up around her so she can make her way to the center unimpeded and quickly close behind her leaving Vidal questioning his sense of reality. She takes her brother to the Faun who’s waiting for them there and tells her to hurry as the moon is almost at its peak. The Faun has the dagger with him and Ofelia asks him why. The reason is because in order to open the portal to the Underground Realm, they need to offer the blood of an innocent (i.e.: her brother). The Faun admits it will only be a small pinprick of blood, so not a lot, but Ofelia refuses to comply. The Faun gets pissed at her again since she promised to follow his orders without question, but she stands firm that she won’t harm her brother to return to the Underground Realm.
In the process, Vidal somehow makes it to the center and sees Ofelia talking to…nothing.
You could infer a couple things from this. While you could cite this as solid evidence of the fantasy world being fake, you could also take the director’s explanation. Guillermo del Toro explains that the reason Vidal doesn’t see the Faun is because he doesn’t believe in it. Makes sense, and also cements this movie as a fairy tale. Vidal approaches Ofelia, takes the baby, and shoots Ofelia in the stomach. Don’t worry, he dies soon. This brings us back around full circle to the opening of the film with Ofelia bleeding out as she collapses next to the pit and blood running down her hand. Vidal makes it back out of el laberinto only to see this:
Hola, seremos tu merecido por la noche.
Translation:
Hello, we’ll be your comeuppance for the night.
He delivers his son to Mercedes who’s standing next to her brother, Pedro, and shares his most human moment of the movie. Vidal starts to look a bit emotional as he grabs his watch and checks the time. He asks the group to tell his son the exact time of his death when he gets older, just like how Vidal’s father, General Vidal, cracked his watch right before his death so Captain Vidal would know how a hero dies. Mercedes isn’t having any of it though, and says that his son won’t even know his name right before Pedro shoots him in the face.
It feels SO justified!
It’s after this that Mercedes makes her way into el laberinto with the rest of the rebels to find Ofelia dying in the center of it all. But, Ofelia’s blood drips onto the portal at the bottom of the pit. The portal’s opened! So Ofelia earns her place among her true father the king and her recently deceased mother in her kingdom. Once again, you could see this ending as tragic if you believe the fantasy world to be fake while watching which is definitely up to your interpretation of the material, but it also ties back into Guillermo del Toro’s concept of immortality that we mentioned earlier. Remember that according to him, anyone who doesn’t care for the consequences of death is immortal in his eyes, which is essentially what Ofelia did. When faced with the opportunity to give her brother’s blood to open the portal, she refused and instead ended up giving her own. This of course resulted in her mortal body dying, but as the fable in the beginning explains, the princess’ mortal body is merely a vessel. It’s her soul that lives on in immortality which is what allows Ofelia to once again become the Underground Realm’s princess. There really are a bunch of different things that you could infer from this ending, and that’s the main thing I like about it. It’s also so great to see this at the end if you do happen to believe that the fantasy world is real in the film, because seeing so many characters happy and smiling in one scene is genuinely heartwarming while also having it juxtaposed with the tragic scene of Mercedes humming Ofelia’s lullaby over her corpse back in the real world. I could legit make an entire blog post just on interpreting this ending, but we don’t have time for that, I’ll just leave an open invitation for comments and ideas for anyone who’d like to discuss it!
As the film closes, we get a final narration from the Faun (just like the narration in the opening) who tells us that after the princess returned to her kingdom, she left little clues and memories from her time on Earth back in the real world, but only visible to those who know where to look. That then wraps up one of my Mapa’s favorite movies, and I can see why!
Talk about a magnificent film, there is frankly too much to praise here in one conclusion. Probably my favorite thing about the movie, and I imagine my Mapa’s favorite aspect of it too, is that the entire movie, to me, feels like a visual poem of sorts. Being an author, poet, and novelist themselves, my Mapa probably appreciates a lot of the visual representations of literature being displayed along with the sense of magical realism which is also their favorite genre to write in. Guillermo del Toro also explains that some of the inspiration for this film came from the works of the author Jorge Luis Borgez which my Mapa is also a fan of.
Taking each of these elements out of the picture, there’s still so much to enjoy including the intricate practical creature effects which I definitely fell in love with, the mature fairy tale theme, the interesting characters, and subtle visual touches. I’m legit surprised, much like my review of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, that I didn’t remember more from this movie going into this review. Although, one thing I do remember is that at the time I first saw this film, I was going through each of the films my family has in our DVD library to make sure there wasn’t a single one I hadn’t seen before. For that reason, I probably ended up forgetting a lot of what happened in the film purely because I was watching one new film each day, and I was trying to fulfill a personal quota which didn’t do any favors for my memory.
With all this being said, it’s not hard to see why this movie is a 3 time Oscar winner with Stephen King’s Seat-Squirming Seal of Approval when you can feel the artistry in every shot, every color palette on screen, every unique transition, and more. In case it’s been a minute since you’ve seen this movie last (much like myself), pop it in again and enjoy a surreal, fantastical, suspenseful, and exhilarating weekend movie night on me.
Given my opinion of this film, I feel obligated to give it a 4.5/5 satyrs. I can’t go at it 100% since I still am somewhat frustrated by some of Ofelia’s actions in the movie as you read previously, but I’ll also admit that much like The NeverEnding Story I did a couple weeks ago, it’s really close to a 5/5 (probably something like a 4.8 or 4.9/5). The only reason I call it a 4.5/5 is for simplicity’s sake.
For Mapa. Happy Birthday!
(I make no claim of ownership for any of the images used in this post)
(Each of them are owned entirely by their respective copyright holders, which are not me)
(I am just a humble blogger who talks about movies, I do not make them)
(Yet)
