Pan's Labyrinth

Christina SiHyun An

English 1135-035

July 10th, 2014

Journal Film #2

Pan’s Labyrinth

Film: Pan’s Labyrinth (El Laberinto del Fauno)

Released:  19 January 2007

Studio: Estudios Picasso

Director: Guillermo del Toro

Screenwriter: Guillermo del Toro

Cast: Ivana Baquero, Sergi Lopez, Maribel Verdu, Doug Jones

        Pan’s Labyrinth is a Spanish-language fantasy film that deals with the darkness of the ongoing war in Spain and the young girl’s fantasy world. The Oscar winning director, Guillermo del Toro, and his Oscar-winning art directors successfully capture the eerie yet captivating otherworldly scenes and creatures.

        Pan’d Labyrinth is about a young girl who is believed to be a resurrected spirit of Princess Moanna of the Underworld, who died by the blinding sunlight of the human world. The film takes place in post-Civil War Spain in 1944, and the young girl, Ofelia, moves with her pregnant mother to meet his new stepfather, who is a Captain fighting against the anti-Franco rebels. As Ofelia takes a look at the new place, she notices a few unusual things but lets them go. However, at night, Ofelia is visited by a fairy, which leads her to the labyrinth, and she meets a faun. The faun tells her that Ofelia is a princess of the Underworld and must complete three tasks before the full moon to prove her royalty. Ofelia successfully completes her first task, but fails due to her disobedience. Angry at Ofelia for her disobedience, the faun refuses to give her the final task. Back in reality, the mother goes into an agonizing pain, and dies giving birth to her son. The faun returns and tells her the final task, which was to bring her newborn baby brother to the labyrinth and sacrifice his blood to open the portal to the Underworld. As she fails to hurt her own brother, the Captain catches her at the labyrinth and shoots Ofelia. Her dripping blood opens the portal and she returns to being Princess Moanna of the Underworld.

        The protagonist Ofelia, played by Ivana Baquero, is a young girl who is rather lonely and powerless in the new place she travelled to, where her stepfather Captain Vidal is under command. The harshness and cruelness of the physical world crush the young girl’s innocence and playfulness. However, her wild imagination and the desperation to escape from the real world to the Underworld, where she feels like she truly belongs, help her to go through the three tasks, whether she succeeded or not. The antagonist Vidal, played by Sergie Lopez, is a Fascist man with no conscience. He will hammer down and torture people who get in his way and push his Fascist ideas to others by any possible means. Unlike Ofelia who notices the unusual unrealistic things in the darkness of the forest, Vidal only focuses on his ideas and the anti-Franco rebels he is determined to destroy.

        Pan’s Labyrinth does an excellent job of bringing the perfect mise en scene to the film. The effect of color, which is one of the most important part of mise en scene, is used dramatically to draw attention to the different worlds. In the physical world, a blue tint throughout different scenes can be noticed. Because of the loneliness of Ofelia and the harshness of the post-Civil War Spain, the blue tint represents the sadness Ofelia feels when she is in the real world. There is a scene where Vidal interrogates a man about the anti-Franco rebels late at night. The scenes are dark-blue tinted, giving a more depth and weight to the scene. It color portrays the darkness and a certain sadness for the cruelness of the physical world.