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Pan’s Labyrinth is a fantasy movie for adults, in a movie industry that often considers fantasy a genre only for children. In that respect it is much more similar to City of the Lost Children, Otesánek, and Brazil than it is to Harry Potter. The film blends a story about wartime resistance, with a fantasy about a girl looking for a missing father.
In 1944, Ofelia travels with her mother to meet her stepfather, the sadistic Capitán Vidal. Vidal is setting a trap for one of the republican resistance cells that continued to fight Franco from the relative safety of the mountains. He invites his wife and Ofelia into the trap out of a desire to attend the birth of his son. His maid and manager of the household, Mercedes, is secretly a spy attempting to protect the resistance, including her brother.
Ofelia escapes into a fantasy world where she discovers she is the lost daughter of the king of the underworld. To open the gateway home, she must succeed at three tasks given to her by an extremely aged fawn (performed by Doug Jones and voiced by Pablo Adan) who appears to grow younger with each appearance. The sound design shines here with the fawn’s movements matching the creaking of dead trees in the wind. The movie progresses in parallel with Ofelia working in secret to complete the tasks given to her, and Mercedes working in secret to deliver critical supplies and information to the resistance.
Vidal is a deceptively simple and brutal ogre. He instigates some of the most brutal violence in the film, and appears to be unfeeling and arrogant. The script only reveals Vidal’s foiled father-quest at the conclusion of the film. The forces that drive Vidal to both deny and attempt to succeed his father are almost too subtle. Perhaps there is a missing scene, or perhaps it’s purposely left quiet.
Although much has been said about the violence of this movie, most scenes did not strike me as worse than a typical episode of CSI. With the exception of a few extremely graphic moments, the film shows much less than you see in the mind’s eye. Likewise, it leaves the conclusions and moral of the story open to the interpretations of the viewer.
It seems that many people have different reactions to this film depending on what you expect going into it. If you walk into the film expecting a full-out fantasy in the same manner as the Henson movie Labyrinth or The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe you will be disappointed. On the other hand if you leave your expectations at the door, you probably will be pleased. The previews seem to be especially misleading.