Written and directed by Guillermo del Toro (Hellboy, The Devil's Backbone, Cronos), Pan's Labyrinth ("El Laberinto del Fauno") returns del Toro to what he does best, combining dark fantasy, history, politics, and drama into another deeply poignant, tragic film centered on childhood and the loss of innocence. Pan's Labyrinth is not just a return to form for a filmmaker who’s attempted the near impossible task of mixing smaller, personal projects with big-budget, high profile Hollywood genre films, but Pan's Labyrinth may just be del Toro’s best film. Actually, Pan's Labyrinth is del Toro's best film, one worthy of serious consideration during the upcoming awards season.
Spain, 1944. Generalissimo Francisco Franco rules Spain with the support of the Catholic Church, the military, and the landowning elite. In Northern Spain, armed guerillas hiding in the mountains resist Franco’s rule with tacit (and sometimes open) peasant support. A detachment of Franco’s forces has set up a military outpost in a requisitioned millhouse. Capitán Vidal (Sergi López), an army officer, arrives at requisitioned millhouse with his pregnant wife, Carmen (Ariadna Gil), and his stepdaughter, Ofelia (Ivana Baquero). Carmen’s pregnancy, however, has been extremely difficult, leading the controlling Vidal to force Carmen into near-permanent bed rest and a wheelchair, bed rest, and the perpetual presence of the town doctor (Álex Angulo), who Vidal forces to remain at the millhouse.
Ofelia remains alone and lonely (children her age are nowhere to be found), retreating into her books and her imagination. Only the head housekeeper, Mercedes (Maribel Verdú), makes any effort to befriend Ofelia. Wandering alone at night, Ofelia encounters an overgrown labyrinth. There, she encounters Pan (Doug Jones), a half-man, half-satyr, who welcome Ofelia as a long-lost princess destined to return to the underworld as its ruler, but only after completing three, increasingly difficult tasks. Back in the real world, Capitán Vidal suspects everyone in the village, treating his subordinates with contempt, and using violence to solidify his hold over the frightened, cowed villagers. Vidal’s future as an officer in Franco’s army depends on “pacifying” the village by eliminating the guerillas and their sympathizers.
Pan's Labyrinth revisits terrain first explored in del Toro's third film, The Devil’s Backbone, a supernatural horror set at an orphanage during the Spanish Civil War. Not surprisingly, the real monsters in Pan’s Labyrinth are Vidal and his men, Vidal for his cruel and arbitrary behavior, and his men, who blindly follow his orders. In both films, del Toro explores similar themes the loss of innocence in war and its aftermath, the destructive social, cultural, and political effects of fascism. Dignity, integrity, liberty, and the rule of law become meaningless when confronted by an ideological system that dehumanizes and punishes dissent even as it claims to offer safety and security in conformity to political and religious ideals.
If anything, Ofelia's fantasy world is less realized than we’ve come to expect from del Toro. We're given tantalizing glimpses of Pan and his world labyrinth, including a feast presided over by a seemingly immobile monster (hat tip to Spanish painter Francisco Goya’s painting, Saturn Devouring His Son), but not much else. Vidal's limited backstory makes him one of del Toro's less complex villains (but still more complex than any villain found in Hollywood). In addition, Pan's Labyrinth is also the grimmest of Grimm fairy tales. The violence depicted in Pan’s Labyrinth is often brutal, graphic, and sudden. While del Toro could have cut away from depicting violence realistically, he didn’t, wanting his audience to see fascism in all its ugliness.
With Pan’s Labyrinth, del Toro proves once again that he’s at his best when he’s working on smaller, personal films (e.g., Cronos, The Devil’s Backbone) than when he takes on less personal Hollywood projects (Mimic, Blade 2, Hellboy). With the exception of Mimic (a forgettable misfire undermined by studio tampering), del Toro’s Hollywood work shows little of the auteurist tendencies he’s shown in his non-Hollywood films (with the occasional exception of the arresting image, a striking composition, or splash of inventive gore). Unfortunately, del Toro's next project is a Hellboy sequel. Perhaps, just perhaps, del Toro will bring more of the arthouse sensibility evident here to his next film (unlikely given the demands of commercial filmmaking, but we can always hope).
© Mel Valentin, 29th December, 2006
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