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Pan's Labyrinth (Spanish: El laberinto del fauno, literally The Labyrinth of the Faun) is a 2006 Spanish language fantasy film^[1][2] written and directed by Mexican film-maker Guillermo del Toro. It was produced and distributed by the Mexican film company Esperanto Films.

Pan's Labyrinth takes place in Spain in May and June, 1944, after the Spanish Civil War, during the franquist repression. Also present is the main character Ofelia's fantasy world which centers around an overgrown abandoned labyrinth. Ofelia's stepfather, the Falangist Captain Vidal, viciously hunts the Spanish Maquis, guerrillas who fight against the Franco regime in the region, while Ofelia's pregnant mother grows increasingly ill. Ofelia meets several strange and magical creatures who become central to her story, leading her through the trials of the old labyrinth garden. The film employs make-up, puppetry, and CGI effects to create its creatures.

Del Toro stated that he considers the story to be a parable, influenced by fairy tales, and that it addresses and continues themes related to his earlier film The Devil's Backbone,^[2] a spiritual sequel, though not an actual sequel. The original Spanish title refers to the mythological fauns of Greek mythology, while the English title refers specifically to the faun-like Greek character Pan (intended to help English-speakers differentiate the title from the term fawn). However, del Toro has stated that the faun in the film is not Pan.^[2]

The film premiered at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival. It was released in the United Kingdom on November 24, 2006. In the United States and Canada, the film was given a limited release on December 29, 2006, with a wide release on January 19, 2007.^[3] Pan's Labyrinth has won numerous international awards, including three Academy Awards, the Ariel Award for Best Picture, and the 2007 Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form.

Contents 1 Pan's labyrinth lullaby 2 Plot 3 Cast 4 References 5 External links

[edit] Pan's labyrinth lullaby

[edit] Plot

The movie opens with a fairy tale. Ofelia ( Ivana Baquero), a young girl who loves to read, lies on the ground, bleeding, while the narration explains that Princess Moanna of the Underground Realm, curious about the world above, escapes to the Earth, where the sun blinds her and, forgetting her past, she weakens and dies. Nonetheless, her father retains hope that her spirit will eventually return to him.

The story then cuts to post-Civil War Spain| Spain under Franco|post-Civil War Spain in 1944, with Francisco Franco firmly in power. Ofelia has traveled with her pregnant mother Carmen ( Ariadna Gil) to join Captain Vidal (Sergi López i Ayats), her new stepfather and father of Carmen's unborn child, at his post in the mountains where he is rooting out Spanish Maquis guerillas, on the North-West Spanish Region.

Ofelia discovers a stick insect that she believes to be a fairy. It follows her to the mill where Vidal is stationed. Ofelia chases it into an ancient labyrinth nearby. Ofelia meets Vidal's housekeeper, Mercedes ( Maribel Verdú), who treats her kindly. Later that night, Ofelia overhears Mercedes and the local doctor conspiring to help the rebels. Upon her mother's request, Ofelia tells a surprisingly mature story to her unborn brother, a fable about pain and loss, and the promise of eternal life. After waking her in the middle of the night, the insect appears in Ofelia's bedroom where it changes into a fairy and leads her outside and through the labyrinth. There, she meets a faun (Doug Jones), who says that he believes her to be Princess Moanna. He gives her three tasks to complete before the full moon to ensure that her " essence is intact" so that she can return to her father's realm.

Ofelia completes the first task of retrieving a key from the belly of a giant toad that lives deep beneath the roots of a fig tree. Ofelia is becoming more worried about her mother, who has been ordered to stay in bed as her condition has worsened. The faun tells Ofelia of a magic way to restore her mother to health. Meanwhile, her stepfather is proving to be a brutish, violently cruel man. Ofelia then undertakes the second task of using the key to retrieve an ornate dagger from the lair of the Pale Man (also played by Jones), a grotesque, child-eating monster who sits absolutely silent and motionless in front of a large feast. Although she was gravely warned not to consume anything, she eats two grapes, awakening the Pale Man, who eats two of her fairy friends and pursues her. She narrowly escapes by drawing an escape door with a piece of chalk. However, infuriated at her disobedience for having eaten the grapes and causing the fairies' death, the faun refuses to give her the third task.

Events in the real world take an even grimmer turn as Vidal captures and brutally tortures a rebel. The doctor who has been staying with them to help Carmen is ordered to tend the wounds of the tortured rebel, so that he can be tortured further. Instead, the doctor kills him to end his ordeal (at the rebel's request). Vidal kills the doctor for his disobedience and betrayal, angered by the doctor's statement that only a man such as Vidal could practice such blind, unthinking obedience with no concern for the consequences. Just as the doctor dies, Carmen goes into labor and starts hemorrhaging. She dies in childbirth, but delivers a healthy son—Vidal had said that if only one could be saved, that it should be his son. Vidal discovers that Mercedes is a spy, and he captures her and Ofelia as they attempt to escape. Ofelia is locked in her bedroom, and Mercedes is taken to be tortured; however, she frees herself using a hidden knife with which she stabs and slices Vidal, but not fatally. She then flees but is caught. At the last moment, the rebels show up and rescue her.

The faun returns to Ofelia and gives her one more chance to prove herself. He tells her to take her baby brother into the labyrinth. She then uses the magic chalk to escape her room and sneak into Vidal's room. She drugs Vidal and grabs her brother; although disoriented, Vidal chases her through the labyrinth while the rebels attack the mill and Mercedes searches for her. Upon reaching the center, the faun tells Ofelia that the portal to the underworld will open only with the blood of an innocent, so he needs a drop of her brother's blood. Ofelia, unsure of his intentions, refuses to allow her brother to be harmed. The faun grudgingly agrees and vanishes. Vidal finds her, takes the baby and shoots Ofelia in the stomach. She falls to the ground, bleeding.

When Vidal leaves the labyrinth, the rebels and Mercedes are waiting for him. Realizing that he will die, he calmly hands Mercedes the baby, and starts to make a request that they tell his son about his heroic father, but Mercedes informs him that his son will never even know his name. Pedro, one of the rebels, shoots Vidal in the face, killing him.

Mercedes enters the labyrinth to find Ofelia dying, in a reprise of the opening scene. While Ofelia's blood drips onto the altar that was the gateway into the underworld, the scene flashes to a dream-like state: Ofelia is reunited with the king ( Federico Luppi) (her deceased father, resurrected) and queen (her mother, alive again) of the underworld. The faun is there, as are the fairies. Ofelia learns that by sacrificing herself, instead of her brother, she has succeeded at the true final task, proving herself to be the Princess Moanna and achieving immortality. The moment Ofelia learns she is the Princess in the underworld, she smiles; at that same instant, in the real world, she dies. The scene is ambiguous however; it is unclear from the inter-cut perspectives whether she has actually died, as it seems in the world on the surface, or if she has taken her place as the princess of the underworld.^[4][5] The final scene shows a little white flower blooming on a dead tree next to where the giant toad lived.

Due to confusion over the film's ambiguity, in an interview, del Toro clarified that, in his own view, the fantasy world isn't only Ofelia's imagination; the Underground Realm does exist, and in the end, Ofelia does actually escape to the fantasy world (where she would be more happy to live in than the real world).^[6]

[edit] Cast

• Ivana Baquero as Ofelia: Del Toro says he was "scared shitless" in casting the right actress for the lead role, and that finding the 10-year-old Spanish actress was purely accidental. (The film was shot from June to October 2005, when she was 11). "The character I wrote was initially younger, about 8 or 9, and Ivana came in and she was a little older than the character, with this curly hair which I never imagined the girl having. But I loved her first reading, my wife was crying and the camera woman was crying after her reading and I knew hands down Ivana was the best actress that had shown up, yet I knew that I needed to change the screenplay to accommodate her age."^[7] Baquero says that del Toro sent her lots of comics and fairy tales to help her "get more into the atmosphere of Ofelia and more into what she felt". She says she thought the film was "marvelous", and that "at the same time it can bring you pain and sadness and scariness and happiness."^[2]

• Sergi López i Ayats as Captain Vidal: Del Toro met with López in Barcelona, a year and a half before filming began, to ask him to play Vidal. In Spain, López was considered a melodramatic or comedic actor, and the producers told Del Toro "You should be very careful because you don't know about these things because you're Mexican, but this guy is not going to be able to deliver the performance"; del Toro replied "Well, it's not that I don't know, it's that I don't care."^[8] Of his character, López said he is "the most evil character I've ever played in my career. It is impossible to improve upon it; the character is so solid and so well written. Vidal is deranged, a psychopath who is impossible to defend. Even though his father's personality marked his existence — and is certainly one of the reasons for his mental disorder — that cannot be an excuse. It would seem to be very cynical to use that to justify or explain his cruel and cowardly acts. I think it is great that the film does not consider any justification of fascism."^[9]

• Doug Jones as The Faun and The Pale Man: Jones had worked with del Toro before on Mimic and Hellboy, and says the director sent him an email saying, "You must be in this film. No one else can play this part but you." Jones read an English translation of the script and was enthusiastic but then found out the film was in Spanish, which he did not speak. Jones says he was "terrified" and del Toro suggested learning the script phonetically, or dubbing his lines with a voice-over actor, but Jones rejected both ideas preferring to learn the words himself. He said, "I really, really buckled down and committed myself to learning that word for word and I got the pronunciation semi-right before I even went in," using the five hours a day he spent getting the costume and make-up on to practice the words.^[10] Del Toro decided afterwards that he still preferred to dub Jones with the voice of "an authoritative theatre actor," but Jones's efforts remained valuable because the voice actor was able to easily match his delivery with Jones's mouth movements.^[11]

• Maribel Verdú as Mercedes: Like López, Verdú was cast against type; usually playing a sex goddess, del Toro selected her to play the compassionate revolutionary because he "saw a sadness in her ... he thought would be perfect for the part".^[8]
• Ariadna Gil as Carmen: Ofelia's mother and Vidal's wife.
• Alex Angulo as Doctor Ferreiro: A doctor in the service of Vidal who is anti-fascist.
• Manolo Solo as Garces: One of Vidal's lieutenants.
• César Vea as Serrano: One of Vidal's lieutenants.
• Roger Casamajor as Pedro: Mercedes' brother, who is one of the rebels.

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Official site
• Official Pan's Labyrinth MySpace