Pan’s Labyrinth (El laberinto del fauno, Guillermo del Toro 2006) is a film that seems to come up frequently on lists of top ten favourite films: finally having the opportunity to see it, I was curious to see what had attracted people to this film. Pan’s Labyrinth should feel at home alongside a film like Amélie (Jean-Pierre Jeunet, 2001), another frequent mention among top ten lists. The protagonists of both films, Ofelia and Amélie, possess a similar determination to locate the magic in everyday life, even if (or especially if) reality is unkind: in Amélie, reality is marked by loneliness and missed opportunities, while Pan’s Labyrinth deals with much more pressing and serious issues such as political extremism, murder and cruelty. Ofelia is much younger than Amélie, yet she is ultimately more mature as her reality forces her to confront serious situations with the bravery of an adult. Even the fantasy sequences in Pan’s Labyrinth are far darker than Amélie’s. Jeunet has a liking for all that is charmingly retro, so objects in his film may be slightly worn, or have a patina of age. But in Amélie, filmed on location in Paris, Jeunet used digital effects to clean up the city’s urban reality, making sure that there was no dog excrement or graffiti around. Del Toro, on the other hand, allows real dirt into his film, as well as bodies that are aging, damaged and uncontained. On her magical quest, Ofelia becomes covered in mud, has insects crawl all over her, and encounters genuinely terrifying creatures, like the slimy roaring toad or the child-eating emaciated man whose eyes are in the wrong place. It is almost surprising that such a dark film could become so popular, especially among fans of Amélie: there must be a crossover between those who enjoy childhood fantasies of hidden worlds, fauns and fairies and those who don’t mind films that treat the more gruesome parts of real life. Although in terms of content, Pan’s Labyrinth is a more serious and relevant film than Amélie, Del Toro’s aesthetic is slick and polished like Jeunet’s.

Insofar as Pan’s Labyrinth comes across as a film that been deliberately planned and elaborated, it gives a sense of being removed from reality. My fellow spectator audaciously compared it to a Hallmark Hall of Fame movie. It seemed like sacrilege to find similarities between the work of a respected a director like Del Toro and bland television fare, yet there was an element of truth to this comparison. Pan’s Labyrinth requires little from the viewer, and can be unthinkingly consumed: you just sit back and let the film do the work for you. I also felt that there was too much crossover between this film and The Devil’s Backbone (El espinazo del diablo, 2001). I watched the two films as part of a DVD set which described them as ‘companion piece[s]’, a rather generous way of saying that Del Toro found a good formula in The Devil’s Backbone and decided to recycle it in Pan’s Labyrinth. The latter film became the more famous, I think, because fairies and fauns are nicer than ghosts. The actress who plays Ofelia also has a more distinctive and sympathetic face than any of the boys in the earlier film.

You’ve heard of gateway drugs: I propose that a film like Del Toro’s is a gateway film, taking audiences a step away from Hollywood and a step closer to art cinema. Del Toro is certainly an auteur: he has his own distinct and creative approach. I admired The Devil’s Backbone for being suspenseful and scary, qualities it derived through a good story and haunting camera work, rather than shock tactics and predictable narrative devices. What had been an arrestingly novel approach to shot transitions in The Devil’s Backbone already felt a bit old and contrived when repeated in Pan’s Labyrinth: still, it’s daring to make a switch in time and place while the camera is passing over an object that momentarily blocks its view. Del Toro’s originality is also evident in the fantasy elements of Pan’s Labyrinth. Although some of these elements have been inspired by Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (Ofelia’s dress and pinafore combination, mysterious doors and their keys, going through a hole in the ground into another world), I think the reason that this film is so appealing is because, despite similarities with The Devil’s Backbone, it is still original: it gives surprising forms to its monsters and fairies, and the protagonist is required to interact with them in unusual ways. Situating a childish fantasy in the historical context of 1940s fascist Spain was also a daring decision, which works astonishingly well. Ofelia’s fantasy world is more than a simple escape from reality. Instead, fantasy subtly mirrors reality—appropriately, given that this brutal reality itself seems unreal. Although some creatures in Ofelia’s fantasy are clearly evil, it is uncertain whether the faun ‘Pan’ is good or not. Shortly after a character in the film’s real world defies the authority of Ofelia’s murderous stepfather, Ofelia also finds that she cannot unquestioningly do everything that Pan tells her to. Rather than taking the easy way out and accommodating yourself to those in power, the film shows the value in standing up for what you believe in, even if it means risking your life.

In addition to a political reading, I think that Pan’s Labyrinth would be amenable to feminist interpretation. To begin, there is a striking contrast between the main female characters (protagonist Ofelia, her pregnant mother, and the underground resistance fighter Mercedes) and the macho military and nationalistic culture represented by Ofelia’s stepfather, an army captain. The mother’s pregnancy hangs over the film like a threat. In an environment regularly punctuated by death, new life should seem like a promise, and Ofelia and her mother do already refer to the baby by name. But there is also a sense of a situation doomed to replicate itself: the stepfather is more concerned about the unborn child than the mother, and has convinced himself that the baby will be a boy, the next generation in a line of military men. There is also ambivalence towards pregnancy itself: the baby is responsible for the mother’s suffering and ill-health, a sort of parasitism symbolised in Ofelia’s fantasy world by the toad that lives in a tree’s roots, slowly starving the tree of life. Ofelia’s leather-bound magic book also responds to the mother’s pregnancy, from the blood stains which predict her near-miscarriage, to the drawings of a fig tree and a gate, both of which bear a strange resemblance to the female reproductive organs. Ofelia begs her mother to leave the army base, a desire mirrored in her fantasy by her disappearance into the corridor-like space of a tree trunk, through a door in the wall down a corridor to a banqueting room, or through the tortuous maze and down the spiral staircase into Pan’s hole in the ground. These forays may represent a return to the womb, appropriate given that Ofelia makes them in connection with her quest for eternal life. Notably, each of these spaces contain a potential stand-in for the unborn baby: creatures which are not quite human in their form. Pan’s Labyrinth is like art films insofar as its form and content showcase the director’s creativity. It is possible to find greater meaning in the film beyond its value as entertainment. The film also treats serious themes without making excessive compromises in order to achieve a happy ending. I think that Del Toro’s work is so popular, though, because it can act as a stepping stone from formulaic Hollywood fare to more challenging, original auteur cinema. For those more accustomed to mainstream American cinema, Pan’s Labyrinth will not seem entirely foreign: it has professional production values, and engages the audience with a strong cause-effect governed story structure and characters which are, in the main, defined one-dimensionally as ‘good’ or ‘evil’.