REVIEW - Pan's Labyrinth (2006) - 14/20

Following the confused and cliché-ridden Blade II (2002) and the disappointingly bland and mainstream Hellboy (2004), Mexican director Guillermo del Toro returns to the same territory as The Devil’s Backbone (2001), the film that made him famous and opened his door to Hollywood.  In many ways, Pan’s Labyrinth is a re-working of the Devil’s Backbone with a little girl replacing a little boy, a forest replacing a desert and the need for escape replacing the need for revenge.

Already the subject of some Oscar buzz and being proclaimed the film of the year by critics all over the world, Pan’s Labyrinth’s critical and financial successes seem assured.  However, in the rush to proclaim del Toro a master of the horror and fantasy genres, critics seem to have failed to notice that this film is not horror or fantasy.  It is a textbook example of magical realism, complete with all the problems associated with that particular genre.

Set in 1944, young Ofelia and her heavily-pregnant mother (Maribel Verdu) travel to the north of Spain where Ofelia’s stepfather, the cruel Captain Vidal (Sergi Lopez), is fighting a war against the communist maquis on behalf of Franco’s fascist regime.  After freeing what appears to be a huge insect from an ancient stone statue, Ofelia is lead into a labyrinth near her stepfather’s headquarters where she meets a faun (Doug Jones) who informs her that she may well be the long-lost princess of the underworld and that she needs to prove herself by successfully completing three dangerous tasks.  As Ofelia undertakes these tasks (including killing a giant toad and stealing a dagger from the lair of a child-eating eyeless demon), her home life begins to degenerate as her mother’s pregnancy starts to threaten her health and Ofelia’s stepfather reveals himself as a brutal zealot blissfully unaware that his own household is full of maquis spies.  Soon, Ofelia and Vidal’s quests converge as Ofelia’s mother dies and Ofelia is told to escape with her baby brother or lose any chance she might have to reclaim her throne.  As the film climaxes, Ofelia is faced with a choice of sacrificing her brother or returning to the world of men to face the hatred of her stepfather.

The film’s setting and period are far from accidental.  Aside from the cosmetic topicality of a Spanish film about the civil war emerging at a time when Spain is going through a process of self-examination regarding the goings on during the civil war and Franco’s regime, the ideological battle between fascists and communists mirrors the film’s theme.  Namely, the line between the reality of the lives we live and the fantasies we have about the lives we could be living if only the real world was not in the way.

As the film begins, Ofelia (clearly named for the character from Hamlet who went mad, started obsessing about the mystical characteristics of plants and then killed herself) is presented as a dreamy little girl who is more interested in her fairy stories and the world of dreams than in the realities of our world.  As long as Ofelia has books then she does not need to go outside.  Such a desire for escapism seems understandable given the horrible nature of the world she lives in.  Aside from her cruel stepfather (a clever re-gendering of the fairy tale wicked stepmother), Ofelia has to deal with famine, war, sickness and pain.

However, Ofelia is not alone in her desire to escape, as her stepfather is also prone to such flights of fantasy.  Vidal is a fanatic, he believes in his mission to eradicate communism from Spain and wishes to see his son born into a cleansed version of his homeland.  Upon being asked why he is so sure that his child will be a boy, Vidal’s answer is simply “Don’t fuck with me”.  For Vidal not having a son is simply unimaginable, the narrative of his life is sketched out and now he needs only to wait for everything to fall into place.  Nevertheless, his skills as a fantasist are not limited to creating a narrative for his life; he is also skilled at editing out the bits that do not fit.  For example, that his father gave him his watch on the understanding that it would never be fixed or the fact that when it came to choose a wife he should seek out the wife of his former tailor.  Vidal’s world is one where the talk of morality and safety overlay a world that is really cruel, cold and arbitrary (one of Vidal's first scenes contains a killing as brutal and graphic as the one with the fire extinguisher in Noe's Irreversible).  This makes it the mirror image of Ofelia’s world.

The underworld kingdom looks astonishingly ugly.  Ofelia’s first quest sees her crawling through mud and insects to confront a giant toad that vomits itself inside out to reveal the object for which she was searching.  Even the faun is a creature of strange angles, milky-white eyes and spastic twitching.  However, under these horrid appearances lies a world that is not only beautiful but just and built on laws and principles as old as the hills, with cruelty only directed at those who deserve it.

As the film moves forward, the increasing violence of the political struggle in Vidal’s world starts to take on weirdly surreal elements such as huge explosions and cavalry charges up forested hills.  This creeping surrealism is matched by the increasing brutality of the tasks that Ofelia must undertake.  Pan’s Labyrinth’s second act sees the fantasy worlds of both Vidal and Ofelia bleeding into the real world, culminating with the discovery of some of Ofelia’s magic under her mother’s bed and the ensuing near-miscarriage that results in the death of the mother.  At this point, it becomes clear that the fulcrum around which the film rotates is not Ofelia but Ofelia’s half-brother, Vidal’s son.  The film is no more about Ofelia’s world of fauns and princesses than it is about Vidal’s world of moral certainty and unquestioning obedience.  It is about the future of the child.

Franco-era films such as Erice’s The Spirit of the Beehive (1973) and Saura’s Cria Cuervos (1976) speak of Fascism allegorically as the death and perversion of the inner child, but whereas some critics (such as Sight & Sound’s Jose Arroyo) identify this inner child with Ofelia, the far more likely subject of del Toro’s allegory is Ofelia’s brother.  As suggested by Orwell’s 1984, historical truth is a threat to authoritarianism.  If a person can remember a time without the “guidance” of the Generalissimo then they can imagine a time in the future when the Generalissimo might not be around, and that is a danger… it is thoughtcrime.  Ofelia might well be a child of Franco’s Spain but by virtue of being protected from it by her mother, she can and does imagine a world where she is free.  That might not necessarily be the case for her brother.  The most terrifying element of 1984 is how needless the breaking of Smith is.  Throughout the book, we encounter children who are only too happy to turn in dissenters and dangerous subversives.  They do this not because they have thought about the matter and chosen fascism, but because they know of no other reality.

Despite the assertions that Pan’s Labyrinth is a fantasy/horror film, despite the cosmetic similarities due to the inclusion of “monsters”, the film is not interested in scaring you or in transporting you to an alternative world (Ofelia’s underworld exists but we learn little about it).  The implication is clearly that we are in our world, it just happens to feature fantastical elements.  This use of the fantastic is a far better fit for the literary genre known as Magical Realism.

Magical realism is mostly closely associated with writers from South America such as Gabriel Garcia Marquez or Jorge Luis Borges.  According to Wikipedia, the genre is characterised by the following elements:

• Contains fantastical elements 
• The fantastic elements may be intrinsically plausible but are never explained
• Characters accept rather than question the logic of the magical element
• Exhibits a richness of sensory details 
• Uses symbols and imagery extensively
• Emotions and the sexuality of the human as a social construct are often developed in great detail
• Distorts time so that it is cyclical or so that it appears absent. Another technique is to collapse time in order to create a setting in which the present repeats or resembles the past
• Inverts cause and effect, for instance a character may suffer before a tragedy occurs
• Incorporates legend or folklore
• Presents events from multiple standpoints - i.e. alternates detached with involved narrative voice; likewise, often shifts between characters' viewpoints and internal narration on shared relationships or memories
• Mirrors past against present; astral against physical planes; or characters one against another
• Open-ended conclusion leaves the reader to determine whether the magical and/or the mundane rendering of the plot is more truthful or in accord with the world as it is

From the film’s rich sonic textures to the idea that Ofelia’s father has been waiting for many years for her to be reborn to the cheeky suggestion that Ofelia might well have imagined the whole thing, these characteristics fit Pan’s Labyrinth like a glove.  Magical Realism was also developed as a response to the rise of fascist regimes in South America.  Profoundly opposed to the modernist trappings of fascism, magical realism sought to project the idea that reality is a subjective rather than an objective thing and that oppressive regimes don’t just destroy the people that oppose them, but also the subjective realities they experience as individuals and as members of different cultures.  The fact that a Mexican should choose to set a film with such themes during the Franco era is again, no mistake.  Simply put, Pan’s Labyrinth is not a work of fantasy or of horror but of magical realism, a genre largely unrepresented in the cinema except for the adaptation of Mexican author Laura Esquivel’s book Like Water for Chocolate.

However, while Pan’s Labyrinth is clearly a peerless expression of a literary genre with a unique set of principles and priorities, by choosing to make a work of magical realism del Toro is also forced to take on that genre’s intellectual baggage.  A product of the 1960’s, magical realism has become so dominant in South American fiction that it is now difficult to produce anything else.  Writer Albert Fuguet reported that when trying to get realist fiction published he was told by publishers to add some folklore and some tropical heat.  This is because while magical realism was once the voice of the dispossessed reacting against an unwelcoming cultural climate, now magical realism completely dominates the south American cultural climate and it is just as unfriendly to other movements and forms of expression as modernism ever was.  Therein lies the rub for Pan’s Labyrinth.

Had Pan’s Labyrinth been made in the 1960’s it would justifiably have been hailed as a masterpiece on a par with the surrealist works of Jodorowsky or Bunuel.  At a time when the majority view is that there is only one Truth and that failure to adopt that Truth is a sign of primitivism then the voice of dissent says that reality is subjective and that there is no such thing as progress.  However, after forty years, the times have moved and what was once the voice of the dispossessed is now the voice of the arts establishment.  In choosing to use elements of classical and European mythology to represent the world of magic, del Toro has unfortunately chosen an idiom that is deeply reactionary and opposed to any kind of change (the film mentions that the fairy royal family have ruled for centuries with punishment dispensed to all those who transgress their ancient laws).

As a result, rather than the dispossessed opposing Franco’s fascists we have two deeply reactionary political systems, both at war for the souls of our children, neither of which are accountable and both of which see human blood as a fair price to pay for preserving the status quo.  When one of these reactionary worldviews represents a political force that has dying out for half a century and the other worldview represents a view that enjoys total cultural dominance within the arts, it’s suddenly difficult to see the film’s moral centre.  Is del Toro really advocating authoritarianism as long as people do not have to wear uniforms?

In fact, I rather suspect that he is not.  Del Toro’s ill-informed and cartoonish politics show the hand of a man who is familiar with great ideas that have come before, but who actually struggles to say anything of worth himself.  Beautifully designed, directed and acted, Pan’s Labyrinth is a technical triumph but despite the complexity of the film’s writing and symbolism, it is ultimately confused and will leave many filmgoers feeling frustrated and unsatisfied.

Comments

[John Dentino]

Thank you for giving voice to the same reservations I had about this film. Admittedly, after hearing that the film had won at Cannes and had scored with, seemingly, all critics, I was shackled with high expectations. Though I'm generally apathetic about the fantasy and horror genres, I felt I tried to meet it halfway. The failure of Pan's Labyrinth for me was that it was completely lacking in moral ambiguity or subtlety. It's basically an application of hero archetypes, sort of a George Lucas film with a Mexican twist of extra brutality and magical realism. That it wowed them at Cannes probably has more to do with the fact that the audience still remembers the glory days of Bunuel sneaking Viridiana in under Franco's nose in 1961 and wishes that the world were today as simple a place. But Bunuel is the one who said, "Artists cannot change the world. But, they can keep an essential margin of non-conformity alive."

There is nothing remotely nonconformist about Del Toro's film, and even more disappointing, it suffers from an almost cynical use of myth to give a sheen of psychological depth. The mythological figure of Pan (or, the satyr) is admittedly properly malevolent—the girl is suspicious of him, finally exerting her personal choice to sacrifice herself in order to preserve her innocent baby brother. Del Toro has the heroine use herself as the catalyst for changing two base elements—her stepfather's fascist political system and the satyr's brutal labyrinth—into an opportunity for the redemption of innocence. But, it's an unconvincing alchemy because Del Toro idealizes the revolutionary troops as a utopian answer to the brutality of the world when they are clearly of the world themselves. It's tempting to recall Woody Allen's satire of similar troops in "Bananas," and the Who's awakening to the fact that the, "new boss" was the "same as the old boss." Why on Earth couldn't Del Toro give up the matrix of idealization and portray the truth about the real world, that it's a combination of evil and cruelty mixed with kindness and grace? Would it have upset the applecart of his carefully constructed humanist fantasy?

In an interview, Del Toro stated that he had turned down an opportunity to direct "Narnia—the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe" because he "wasn't interested in the Lion's resurrection." It's very telling that he would choose to reject the idea of sacrifice and resurrection in an allegory about Christ while favoring instead the mystical pagan sacrifice in Pan's Labyrinth. After the Spanish church's support of Franco, it seems the birthright of Spanish and and Latin American ex-Catholics has been to reject Christianity as patriarchalism. In doing so, some have moved toward worship of the feminine. The tree opening into which the heroine crawls is shaped like the opening of a vagina. That's all good and fine; Pan himself has been historically represented as a phallus. Alchemy, according to the Jungian model Del Toro tacitly acknowledges, involves the unification of two opposites, not the transformation of one into its opposite. And in trotting out his Bullfinch's inspired sketches for his production designer, Del Toro merely adds to the glut of popular, visually arresting mythmaking a la Lucas—he pleases Cannes, but falls short of making a great piece of film art.

[Jonathan McCalmont]

Hi John, and thanks for the comments (nice Blog by the way).

Obviously, I agree with you about Del Toro's bungled handling of the fascists. However, in the last Star Wars film, Lucas forced his own carefully constructed mythical universe to implode as instead of Anakin falling from grace, he fell into relativism with all of his talk of how only Sith talk in absolutes and how, from his perspective, it’s the Jedi that are evil. So you might being a bit unfair on either Lucas or Del Toro by comparing one to the other ;-)

Your point about Del Toro's refusal to engage with Christianity whilst not straying far from Christian concepts is very interesting and, I think, a fascinating fact about Del Toro that ties him in to a wider cinematic tradition.

Many have compared Del Toro to Bunuel (despite Bunuel being ten times the film-maker Del Toro will ever be) and judging by the search queries that hit my website, many are also seeking to compare him to Jodorowsky. This is interesting as Del Toro, Bunuel and Jodorowsky all embraced the languages of surrealism (though some more than others) and all of them have ties both to Spain and Mexico, thereby lending the concept of a wider Spanish language film-making movement credibility (despite the fact that most Spanish films really have nothing much to do with Mexico).

However, these cosmetic similarities aside, all three Directors have similar trouble freeing themselves from their roots in Christian cultures.

Bunuel freed himself by turning his considerable wit against Christianity. Indeed, I cannot think of a more stinging and vicious satire of Christianity than the end of Exterminating Angel. Compare this to the timorous mocking at the far more famous hands of Monty Python’s Life of Brian (let Satan protect us all from images of a 1970’s John Cleese saying how it’s impossible to mock Christianity because Jesus was such a great moral philosopher) or the “But God’s great ain’t he” fawning of noted Catholic and imbecile Kevin Smith in Dogma.

Jodorowsky meanwhile embraced pretty much every belief system under the Sun and none at the same time. But despite clearly disliking Christianity and organised religion, he is unable to free himself from its imagery. Thereby inviting the playground come back “If you’re an atheist, why can’t you shut up about Christianity?”.

However, Del Toro’s attitude to Christianity is perhaps the most intriguing as well as the most puzzling. Del Toro makes a film about the nature of belief in Spain and yet omits to mention Catholicism except within the subtext of the film’s climax. The interview you mention says that Del Toro has no interest in resurrection and sacrifice and yet there it is on the screen, cloaked in bargain-basement paganism. Del Toro Is displaying what Sartre would have called “bad faith” as he is someone who claims to be uninterested in the teachings of the Christian god and yet we find them nonetheless appearing, under the cloak of an unconvincing classical paganism.

Del Toro is a textbook example of the modern “spiritual person”. He is someone who lacks the courage and imagination to question the beliefs that were drilled into him as a child but, nonetheless, wants to look like a free and original thinker. Therefore, he gives his beliefs a new lick of paint and wheels them out as if they are different, challenging or weird.

In this respect, Pan’s Labyrinth is very much like any piece of post-Tolkienian fantasy; it’s resolutely a-political, it’s inherently pro-status quo and it’s all about presenting other worlds in a way that makes them familiar and safe to the reader.

Del Toro’s a great visual stylist and he clearly reads the right kinds of books but I seriously doubts that he understands them as if you scrape beneath the weirdness you’ll find only the old, the familiar and the comfortable.

[John Dentino]

Jonathan—Well, we may disagree on this, but I think that if you scrape the surface of anything the most daring artists do, at the bottom you'll find something "old, familiar, and...comfortable"—in other words—human. I should tell you that I considered myself an agnostic, even an atheist, for many years as I towed the mid-20th century anti-Christianity line until I got sick of my own hypocrisy. Brought up as a Unitarian in an Italian-American family whose patriarch was an atheist and anarchist, I discovered that Bunuel's world view fit with mine, for a time. His was a bemused, entomological view of human beings and their follies. As a bracingly sane man who was born in the first year of that weird, horrific century, he rejected the labyrinthine and tortured self-justifications of organized religion. Not having been shackled with a religious upbringing, I can now embrace the beauty of the idea of God coming down to Earth in the form of a Man and sacrificing Himself to illustrate the futility of, among other things, human ritual sacrifice and war (Rene Gerard helps me understand this). I still have a rationalist's difficulty with the Trinity and the divinity of Christ, but I'm OK with at least trying to be a Christian. I have to be interested in Christ's sacrifice and Resurrection, if for no other reason than its irrationality mirrors my own experience of life as I experience it—a constant process of idol worshipping false Selves dying to be reborn. Personally, the long journey from being in lock step with the tortured self-justifications of Humanism and its doctrine of the perfectability of Man—to an acceptance of deep mystery and original sin—is a load off my mind. Bunuel, though I may no longer need his atheism, prized mystery and didn't suffer utopian fools gladly. Del Toro's still looking for the perfect closed system in which we can solve our problems. He chose the mode of sacrifice because there is no other way to describe the experience of our dying—it's an inescapable sacrifice of the self. If, as Joseph Campbell says, religion's purpose is to prepare us for Death, then Del Toro is providing us with that, but, as you say, is cloaking resurrection and sacrifice in "bargain-basement paganism." My question to you is, if there is something newer and shinier and better than Religion that answers the dilemma of living and dying in what some have called a tragic veil of tears, then what is it? Nanotechnology? Psychology? Humanism?

[Jonathan McCalmont]

John -- Perhaps you are right about the ultimate humanity of Del Toro. However, it is one thing for Del Toro to be human and ultimately prone to rediscovering the wheel, but it is quite another for his art to do the same. Countless great thinkers have come up with new ways of seeing the world. Cinema is a forgiving medium and as such, it is easier to float new ideas than in many other mediums. For Del Toro to fall back on the Catholicism of his youth feels... disappointing.

As for Christianity, I don't think we are likely to agree. for example, you see beauty in the act of atonement undertaken by Christ on the cross and I see exactly the opposite. St. Anselm formulated the satisfaction theory of atonement. According to this, man's tendency to sin (and the original Sin itself) broke a conclave between God and Man. A Conclave that could only be repaired through an act of atonement... the sacrifice of a man without sin... a man who was God. Far from a denunciation of human sacrifice, I would argue that this IS human sacrifice... an angry god who can only be appeased through an offering of blood. While there are different theories of atonement, all of them have that same idea at their heart: Man has transgressed against God and should we ever hope to get back into his good graces then an act of sacrifice is necessary. I don't see any beauty in that... only something truely truely terrifying. Leading us to your last point.

I'm an atheist but I don't really class myself as a humanist. In fact, I don't really consider myself an adoptee of any particular school of moral or political thought. However, when it comes to the stuff you're talking about... the tragic veil of tears... then I really get a kick out of Sartre's Existentialism is a Humanism. At the heart of the book is the idea that existence precedes essence. In other words, we define ourselves through our thoughts and our actions and these aren't determined by any grand cosmic plan. In fact, humanity is truly free. We can form up into belligerent tribes and exterminate each other, we can build a civilisation that will come to dominate the galaxy or we can accidentally destroy ourselves. There is nothing out there to hold our hand or to guide us or to tell us what to do... we are free and we are responsible for our actions and ultimately it's up to us to come up with our own answers and to give our own lives meaning by exercising that choice and determining our own essence both as individuals and as a species. Many think this view is bleak or depressing... I don't... I see it as utterly and completely uplifting. There are no limits on our freedom.

[jan]

I went searching for the religious aspect attached to Pan's Labyrinth and am enlightened that I happened upon this site. I have found both your views interesting and am glad you have taken the time to post them. I am actually a Christian and found many of the scenes attached to religion. I was amazed that when the group of us left the film (all with different religious views) and upon discussion found that we had such varying conceptions of what we had just saw. I, actually enjoyed the movie and did not see that the concept of religion that was touched upon as an insult while I have read many reviews now that state it should been an "up yours" to my belief system. Alas, life if such that we all do have free will and free thinking given to our existence. I did enjoy your posts though and just wanted to let you know.

[John Dentino]

Just to chime in once again, indeed, there are no limits to human freedom. Reasonable people can totally disagree about what that means. For me, the freedom and responsibility we have is something to be wary of, and I've learned to impose some limits on it. Sirens call us from the shore and beckon us to crash ourselves into the rocks. Jonathan, your statement, "There is nothing out there to hold our hand or to guide us or to tell us what to do," is obviously something with which I disagree. Religion is that guide, or, if you prefer, the spiritual traditions of the past such as Buddhism are repositories of wisdom that tell us what to do.

[Jonathan McCalmont]

I'm afraid that I don't have much more time for Buddhism than I do for Catholicism. They're all much of a muchness to me, little more than the intellectual remnants of man's past whether it's the iron age philosophy of Christianity or the admittedly philosophically complex but pre-scientific musings of what we now consider "eastern philosophy".

But setting aside the truth or falsity of the metaphysical claims made by religion, I find Catholicism in particular politically at odds with what I believe to be true and what I think would make for a better society.

I'm reminded of an interview with the Monty Python team when they made the Life of Brian. Apparently they set out to mock the teachings of Jesus but decided in the end that you couldn't because it was just "good moral philosophy". I couldn't disagree more and in fact, even if God did exist I'd say that the moral code he had laid out for us was wrong and harmful. Voltaire said that if God did not exist, it would be necessary to create him but on a purely political level I think that even if God did exist, it would be necessary for man to destroy him.

No, I am happier dealing with a free humanity. even if that freedom means the freedom to commit atrocities or waste one's life. It's still more palatable to me than the idea of living enslaved to a deity's moral code.

[DWD]

Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things.