A Closer Look at Pan’s Labyrinth (2006)
The Overlooked Art of Symbolism and Allegory
Pan’s Labyrinth was one of those films, that stuck with me for days. It was directed by Guillermo Del Toro, who was recently awarded Oscar as Best Director for ‘Shape of Water’. Going into this movie, I had no idea what to expect, so I wasn’t expecting much. And of course, I was wrong.
Now, Pan’s Labyrinth is by no means can be considered a film with complex narrative. There was no massive plot twist at the end of movie, where usually the directors tend to go all-out-mental and pretend like we all should have seen that coming. I believe its brilliance lies within its simplicity, masterful imagery and careful attention to details.
To me, the very next few days felt like a treasure hunt after watching this film, as every time I thought of it, I was like …hold on! wait a second… and discovered something intriguing. Which is one of the traits of a clever film and not many filmmakers are capable of doing that. Anyone who haven’t watched this film yet, I can’t recommend it enough.
A Quick Recap
I sure hope you have watched the film by now, otherwise: Spoiler Alert. Here’s how it started. Lured by a stick insect, little girl Ofelia reaches the Labyrinth nearby and meets a magical creature who introduces himself as Faun. He greets Ofelia as the princess of the underworld and explains the prophecy about her grand return to her homeland. To assure her, he points out to the marked moon on her shoulder which proves, she is no mere mortal.
The last remaining gateway to her kingdom is this Labyrinth. But Faun speaks of 3 tasks which Ofelia must complete before full moon to open the gateway.
Into The Labyrinth
Now what is so special about Pan’s Labyrinth? To explain its brilliance, let’s go through Ofelia’s 3 part quest.
Before that, here is an interesting point on Faun’s appearance. Although, it seemed like a random choice for character concept, there was a subtle hint why Ofelia envisioned Faun in that form. Notice the wood curving on her bed. Tell me that’s not some top notch detailing!
At first watch, the given 3 tasks can appear kind of incoherent, even irrelevant to the main flow of the story. But it’s not. Here’s where masterful symbolism comes in.
Episode 1 : The Key
The first quest was to retrieve a key from a giant toad, which lived inside an ancient tree. The tree was dying as the toad settled in its root and absorbed the life out of it. Ofelia must kill the toad, retrieve the key and save the tree.
Symbolically, The dying tree and the toad was linked to Ofelia’s mother. The tree was representation of Ofelia’s pregnant mother who was suffering due to her problematic contractions. And the toad which was responsible for the suffering of the tree, represented her unborn child.
Ofelia did retrieve the the key from the toad and saved the tree in her imagination. The quest of retrieving key itself has its own interpretation and is loosely linked to the first third of the main story which involves around a store room key.
Here’s how. The plot was set around 5 years after Spanish civil war. Ruthless Captain Vidal was assigned to smoke out the remaining rebels hiding in a remote forest.
Mercedes, his trusted caretaker was on a survival struggle as she was secretly helping the rebels to stand up against Vidal.
At some point Captain Vidal decided to lock down all the food and medicine supply in the whole area. An efficient way to end the revolution nonetheless. So he immediately stashed everything up in his storage and took the storage key from Mercedes. What he didn’t know was that Mercedes had a spare key to that storage. Which made her the only hope for the rebels to survive.
Basically, while Ofelia was on a imaginary quest to retrieve the magical key, Mercedes was on her own adventure to smuggle foods and medicine to the rebels using her spare key.
Episode 2 : The Dagger
The second quest for Ofelia was to use the key to a locker, and collect a dagger from it. But the place was guarded by a gruesome child eating monster, who is likely more famous than the film itself. Honestly, the whole sequence was such a visual treat.
On that note, here is a comparison between two scenes from the same night.
Now, this dagger itself has a subtle connection to Mercedes story, almost like the key. Throughout the movie, there were couple of suspiciously long close up shot of a kitchen knife, which Mercedes carefully keeps with herself. Later in the film, it proves to be significant.
As we remember, this small knife was her salvation when she was captured by Vidal. Using it, she just cut through her ties, gave Vidal a joker face and escaped to the forest.
Episode 3 : The Sacrifice
For the final task, Faun asks Ofelia to bring her little brother to the Labyrinth. This is the final stage of the film, the rebels took a stand against Captain Vidal and he is on the verge of his defeat. In total chaos, Ofelia stole her baby brother from Vidal and ran to the labyrinth.
To her surprise, Faun asks for blood sacrifice of her innocent baby brother, using the dagger she retrieved, which of course, caught her off guard. Even after several warnings from Faun, Ofelia refused to hand over the baby and eventually accepted the consequences.
Now, here is a darker interpretation. Since Faun was merely her imagination, arguing with faun was basically Ofelia arguing with herself. In a way, her little brother was reason for all her loss, suffering and humiliation. Also, she knew her stakes when she stole that baby from that murderous man. For a few moments, perhaps Ofelia was considering a heartless revenge. But in the end, her innocence won over her vengeance.
Closure
The story ends differently within two worlds. On her imaginary world, her quest was a success and she opened the portal to her home.
Returning to underworld, she reunited with her parents and reclaimed her throne as the princess. And the curtain drops on this note:
And that she left behind small traces of her time on earth. Visible only to those who know where to look.
Thanks for reading!
