Guillermo Del Toro is just fresh off of two Oscar wins for his fascinating picture "The Shape of Water", which itself marries several themes of romance, aging, monstrosity and the Cold War. So I think it's as good a time as any to talk about his 2006 masterpiece "Pan's Labyrinth".
"Pan's Labyrinth" is, for lack of better phrasing, a darkened fairy tale. And while Guillermo certainly made it clear that his intent for "The Shape of Water" was to create a "fairy tale for troubled times", I feel that "Pan's Labyrinth" is a fairy tale for something different, but quite similar. "Pan's Labyrinth" is a snapshot of the fallout from the Spanish Civil War, as a new age has just begun, and civil disobedience was being tested to its limits.
Guillermo Del Toro's innovation has often been to blend elements of fantasy with well-known and familiar historic backdrops. "The Shape of Water" explores its heady themes by delving into the tense world of a nation on edge, and "Pan's Labyrinth" weaves together ideas of innocence, sacrifice, and rebellion with the secret ingredient of magic.
Film has largely been a reality-based medium. Even with comic book blockbusters like The Avengers, audiences relish in the real world elements brought to the table. Today, if a superhero movie doesn't provide a realistic world that audiences can easily see parallels to, the film is deemed subpar and banal. Guillermo Del Toro, however, with "Pan's Labyrinth", taught audiences to just let themselves escape. And that's a viewpoint we don't really see a lot of respect for in cinema. Genres like horror and fantasy are generally considered second rate, but they have incredible potential and are oftentimes beautifully realized.
In "Pan's Labyrinth", the main character, Ofelia, seeks to complete tasks assigned by a faun who implies that she would become a princess. As she tries to finish this fantastical laundry-list by her given deadline, her fairytale clashes with the very serious surrounding conflicts. Adults chastise her for her immature fantasies, but Guillermo hints to us that everyone, the audience included, could learn from these tales.
Take the scariest sequence in the whole film, when Ofelia faces the pale man in the basement. This is a spoiler, just for your info. The faun gives explicit instructions for Ofelia not to eat from the large feast in front of her, yet she still partakes in two grapes. It's a side note that she hasn't eaten in a long time, and is probably really hungry. But moreover, her actions epitomize the disobedience that underscores some of the other characters' actions in the film. It thematically resonates with the post war themes, and moreover, it emphasizes why Ofelia is special. She doesn't blindly follow instructions, she epitomizes independent thought.
Another thing I love about Guillermo Del Toro is that he doesn't write one-note characters, he writes full-blooded personalities. The captain, particularly, could just easily be a simple oppressive, heavy-handed authoritarian, but his relationship with his father, who relayed to his son the exact time and circumstances of his death, deepens the character and totally adds a whole new dimension to his actions and outlook. It even adds a whole arc for this small discussion of fatherhood and masculinity, which comes full circle when the Captain meets his end. Guillermo Del Toro masterfully demonstrates how just one individual character can add wholly new depths to "Pan's Labyrinth", and he does it over and over with successive characters.
I could watch Guillermo Del Toro's "Pan's Labyrinth" dozens of times before I feel like I have a total grasp on the film as a whole. Thematically and visually, there is so much going on at every given moment that it's really reductive to narrow in on just one part of the film, as I have done, and to present it as a reflection of the whole. So mark my words, Guillermo Del Toro films work on many levels. Let yourself soak all of them in. Watch "Pan's Labyrinth", and while you're at it, check out "The Shape of Water". We can all use some fantasy escapism these days.
