Pan’s Labyrinth (2006): The Journey Behind Guillermo Del Toro’s Dark Fairytale

Guillermo del Toro was born on October 9, 1964 in Guadalajara, Jalisco in Mexico. He was raised in a Catholic household and described his first years in life as “morbid”, stating that they made him absolutely intolerant of authoritarian figures. Del Toro developed an interest in making short dark fantasy films with his father’s Super 8mm camera since he was only eight years old and created about 10 short films till high school. He later attended the film school, Centro de Investigación y Estudios Cinematográficos, in Guadalajara, from where he graduated in 1983. In the mid-1980s, del Toro began shooting horror short films such as Doña Lupe (1985) and Geometría (1987) and also participated in La Hora Marcada, a Mexican horror TV show that aired from 1988 to 1990. This is where he collaborated with Alfonso Cuarón and Emmanuel Lubezki. Del Toro also specialized in film makeup under the guidance of Dick Smith (legendary makeup artist for The Exorcist) and eventually worked on various films as a makeup artist during the 1990s. His debut feature film was Cronos (1993), a superbly executed low-key Mexican tale about vampires. Winner of the critics’ prize at the Cannes Film Festival, Cronos was the start of a filmmaker who seems to be inspired by the classic tales of The Brothers Grimm and Charles Perrault, the cinema of Alfred Hitchcock and James Whale, as well as the literature of Lewis Carroll and Charles Dickens.

Guillermo followed Cronos with his first dive into Hollywood, Mimic (1997). Despite the film’s great scares out of mutant bugs terrorizing New York City, Guillermo felt unhappy with fulfilling Hollywood studio demands. After returning to Mexico, del Toro formed his own production company, The Tequila Gang, and started working on more personal film. Shot in Spain and produced by Pedro Almodóvar and his brother Agustín Almodóvar, The Devil’s Backbone (2001) is an ambitious story set during the end of the Spanish Civil War. With the help of filters and a mobile camera, del Toro created sepia-toned visuals that evoked a chilling universe over the politically metaphorical events taking place in a haunted boys’ school for Republican Army orphans. Praised for its dense atmosphere and complex themes, The Devil’sBackbone confirmed del Toro’s artistic ambitions. As years went by, Guillermo developed a very distinctive style composed by a unique blend of fantasy, horror and science fiction. Preferring to vanish a bit from Hollywood and to craft another dark fairy tale in the vein of The Devil’s Backbone, del Toro would focus his attentions on the production of his magnum opus, Pan’s Labyrinth (2006).

Pan’s Labyrinth unravels through the eyes of Ofelia (Ivana Baquero), a daydreaming and imaginative little girl who is commanded by her stepfather, Captain Vidal (Sergi López) and forced to stay at a rural military outpost in fascist-ruled Spain. Powerless and lonely in a place of atrocious cruelty, Ofelia lives out her own dark fable as she faces monsters both supernatural and human. The story takes us back to 1944, the 12 year-old Ofelia arrives with her pregnant mother Carmen (Ariadna Gil) at an isolated farmhouse in Northern Spain. Here, between the dark woods and haunted atmosphere, her new stepfather Vidal has set up a fort to haunt leftover anti-fascist republican rebels from the Civil War. In her new home, Ofelia immediately bonds with Mercedes (Maribel Verdú), Vidal’s humble housekeeper. Mercedes secretly aids the rebels, which include her brother Pedro (Roger Casamajor). While the adults are fully immersed in their turbulent dramas, Ofelia has her own problems of a different sort.

For Ofelia, a girl who loves old books with fantastic stories, her new home is both a beautiful blessing and an evil curse. She is immediately intrigued by a mysterious old stone labyrinth located behind Vidal’s fort. Though Mercedes (Maribel Verdú) warns her not to go inside, Ofelia is lured by a magical small fairy. Once there, she meets the faun Pan (Doug Jones). The faun tells Ofelia that she is a long-lost underworld princess who has finally come to return to her kingdom. All she has to do is complete three magical tasks. He gives Ofelia a magic book, whose blank pages will reveal her missions. The tasks aren’t simple, and they have brutal consequences when not done right. While the rebel hunt intensifies in the mountains, and her mother’s pregnancy turns dangerous, Ofelia bravely pursues her magical tasks with strong passion and sublime effort. She retrieves a key from the stomach of a giant frog and also steals a dagger from a child-eating monster’s lair. These tasks are filmed by del Toro like mini-epic tales, flooding over with dramatic tension and majestic endings, as Ofelia sets herself against the darkness of evil. One of the adults says to her: “The world isn’t like your fairy tales. The world is a cruel place”. They simply don’t understand that Ofelia’s fairy tales are as cruel as anything she encounters in our reality.

The horror of the real world lies in Falangist Spain with the menacing Captain Vidal who takes extreme pleasure in torture, constantly preparing his tool kit and reciting his own speeches to demonstrate superiority. Vidal is a man who is obsessed with the continuation of his “privileged” bloodline. Pan’s Labyrinth successfully and perfectly captures the passion of classical children’s literature; combining blissful amounts of fantasy with moments of real horror, all with an underlying and ultimately crucial message. Del Toro presents two different worlds, first is the brutal backdrop of the Civil War, the second one is Ofelia’s fantasy realm. The adults never see what the young girl is going through, and part of the experience of the film is questioning whether Ofelia is really witnessing magic or if these accounts are just temporary escapes from the tormented life with her stepfather. In both worlds, survival requires sacrifice and strong life lessons: regardless of which interpretation you choose to believe, the spell of Pan’s Labyrinth is completely unique. Guillermo crafted a multi-layered monster tale which scares, impacts and delights the viewer. The Mexican filmmaker tells the audience what it’s like to believe so thoroughly in your own imagination, while also reminding us that true heroism is filled with errors: “Since childhood I’ve been faithful to monsters – I have been saved and absolved by them. Because monsters, I believe, are patron saints of our blissful imperfection”.

by Octavio Carbajal González