Pan's Labyrinth

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Please help improve this article or section by expanding it.
Further information might be found on the talk page or at requests for expansion.

Pan's Labyrinth

Directed by	Guillermo del Toro
Produced by	Alfonso Cuarón Guillermo del Toro
Written by	Guillermo del Toro
Starring	Ivana Baquero Doug Jones Sergi López
Cinematography	Guillermo Navarro
Distributed by	Picturehouse (US)
Release date(s)	October 11, 2006 (Spain) December 29, 2006 (US)
Running time	112 min.
Country	Mexico / Spain / USA
Language	Spanish
All Movie Guide profile
IMDb profile

Pan's Labyrinth, titled in Spanish as El Laberinto del Fauno, is a 2006 fantasy film directed by Guillermo del Toro. The film premiered in the 2006 Cannes Film Festival and was released in the United Kingdom on November 24, 2006. It is expected to release in American theaters on December 29, 2006. The film has been chosen as Mexico's entry for Best Foreign Language Film at the 79th Academy Awards^[1] and has been nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the 2007 Golden Globes^[2]. In 2004 Del Toro said: "Pan is an original story. Some of my favorite writers (Borges, Blackwood, Machen, Dunsany) have explored the figure of the God Pan and the symbol of the labyrinth. These are things that I find very compelling (remember the labyrinth image on Hellboy?) and I am trying to mix them and play with them." Some of the works he drew on for inspiration include Jorge Luis Borges's Labyrinths, Arthur Machen's The Great God Pan and The White People, Lord Dunsany's The Blessing of Pan, Algernon Blackwood, Pan's Garden, and Francisco Goya's Saturn Devouring His Son ^[3].

[edit] See also

Works influenced by Alice in Wonderland

[edit] Footnotes

^ [1]
^ [2]<ref>. ==Plot summary== In a post-[[Spanish Civil War|Civil War]] northern [[Spain]] in [[1944]], a 12-year-old girl, Ofelia ([[Ivana Baquero]]), moves with her heavily-pregnant mother and stepfather into a new home in the countryside. Her stepfather, Captain Vidal ([[Sergi López (actor)|Sergi López]]) has been posted to this remote area to rid it of a small [[Second_Spanish_Republic|Republican]] [[militia]]. Disliked by the [[sadism|sadistic]] Vidal, Ofelia, who revels in [[myths|ancient stories]] and [[fairy tales]], discovers an immense and ancient [[labyrinth]] guarded by a [[Faun]] ([[Doug Jones (actor)|Doug Jones]]). He tells her she is the long-lost daughter of the king of a magical land, and to regain entry to her kingdom she must carry out [[Quest|three tasks]]. So Ofelia enters a strange and no less dangerous world of [[fairies]] and extraordinary creatures such as the terrifying Pale Man ([[Doug Jones (actor)|Doug Jones]]). ==Movie plot== {{spoiler}} The year is 1944 and in the era of post Spanish Civil War, guerrillas hide in the forests of northern Spain where Captain Vidal has been posted to eradicate the last of these rebels. He and his men use an old mill as their base and his new wife, heavily pregnant with his son, and her daughter Ofelia (12) travel to meet him. The voice over that precedes this explains that once upon a time the king of the netherworlds had a daughter, but she wished to see the world above and live in sunlight, sneaking past her guards - but the sunlight blinded her, and her immortality gone, she died. The king swore he would search for her soul, which would one day [[reincarnation|reappear]] on earth, and return her to her rightful place. Ofelia meets her new stepfather and it quickly becomes apparent what a brisk and brutal man he is. Two of the rebels are living in the mill as a servant and the doctor, and each night sneak out to give messages and medical supplies. On her first night, Ofelia is visited by a faerie who leads her to an old labyrinth nearby the mill. Inside, she finds a strange plinth and a 7 foot faun ('[[Pan (mythology)|Pan]]'; though he doesn't use the name) who tells her that she is the princess of the netherworld and to gain her rightful place once more she must fulfill three tasks before the next [[full moon]] (a few days away). He gives her a blank book that explains her tasks and 3 stones. Her first task is to feed the stones to an old toad that is killing the large old fig tree it lives in the roots of. She must then take a gold key from its belly. This she does the next day, though she dirties the dress her mother made and gets told off. At the dinner party the captain throws that night, it becomes obvious that he cares not for his wife or Ofelia but the baby son he is soon to have. When Ofelia looks in the book for her next task, she finds the pages filling with blood - and hears her mother screaming from next door. The doctor is called in and her mother sedated, and Ofelia moved to a new room where she can't wake her. Alone, the Faun visits her and asks why the 2nd task is incomplete. She explains about her mother and, tutting, he gives her a [[Mandrake_(plant)|mandrake]] root to hide under her mother's bed, to take away the pain. She thanks him as he explains the task: She must visit an old inhuman creature and unlock a small door, collecting the treasure inside. Pan emphasizes that the girl must not touch any of the feast that is laid out before the creature. He gives her an hourglass, chalk and his 3 faerie pets to help. Drawing a door with the chalk, the place appears on the other side and turning the hourglass. She is told that she must return before the hourglass has run out. Ofelia does as she is told and finds a feast laid out in front of a horrid, eyeless creature, surrounded by pictures of the beast devouring children. The pictures in her book and the faeries tell her to pick the middle lock, however she choses the lock on the left. She opens the compartment and finds a gold dagger. But on the way out, she can't resist the grapes. The beast awakes and plucks two of the faeries out of the air, chomping off their heads, and chases Ofelia back to her door, which closes before her. Panicked, she tries to draw another door on the ceiling and barely escapes. When the faun next appears, Ofelia tearfully explains what happened to his faeries. He angrily says that she isn't cut out for this, and he must have made a mistake. She can no longer return. She bursts into tears as he vanishes. Outside, the Captain almost catches up with the rebels, one of whom is the servant spy's brother. They find an empty camp fire and an antibiotic vial. Later on, the rebels attack, raiding the mill storeroom. Half the rebels die, shot in the hills. One is caught and tortured by the captain. The doctor is called to treat him, and the bloodied man asks for the doctor to kill him. It's the most the doctor can do. But as he sees to him, the captain sees an antibiotic vial in the doctor's case the same as the one he found at the camp fire earlier. The two argue, the truth becomes obvious and the doctor is shot. While checking on the mandrake root, Ofelia is discovered by the captain and he slaps her, demanding to know what she's doing. Her mother wakes up and throws the mandrake root in the fire, where it screams and writhes causing Ofelia's mother to instantly collapse and begin to bleed. A troop doctor is called but Ofelia's mother dies in childbirth, though the baby boy lives. Meanwhile, the Captain has realized the mill storeroom's lock was undamaged when the storeroom was broken into and only the servant has the key. He alludes to the fact the he knows she is a spy. She is later caught and tied in the barn to be tortured. Using the kitchen knife from her apron, she cuts her ropes, stabs the captain (though not fatally) and runs into the forest. She is chased and eventually surrounded by the troops, but is rescued by the guerrillas. Ofelia is distraught, and when the faun appears again, she hugs him and pleads if there is anything she can do to go home to the netherworld. He grudgingly agrees, if she will do as he says, unquestioningly: to collect her brother and take him to the labyrinth. She sneaks into the captains room, drugs the Captain's liquor and takes her brother. Her drugged step father chases her to the labyrinth. The faun meets her there and says in order to get home, she must spill innocent blood to open the portal, hence the gold dagger and the baby, but Ofelia refuses to spill her brother's blood. The faun steps back as her stepfather reaches her, takes her brother and shoots Ofelia. He then leaves the labyrinth to find the rebels awaiting him at the exit, where they take his son. Asking the servants that his son be told what time his father dies, the spy says "He will never even know your name," just before the rebel leader shoots the Captain. The rebels go into the labyrinth where they find Ofelia dying, but we see that in leaving her mortal body, she is finally returned home, since she passed all three tasks - including not spilling innocent blood for her own sake. She meets her father, her mother and the faun in a glowing palace. {{endspoiler}} == Cast== {| class="wikitable" |- bgcolor="#efefef" ! Actor !! Role |- | Ivana Baquero || Ofelia |- | [[Doug Jones (actor)|Doug Jones]] || Faun / The Pale Man |- | [[Sergi López (actor)|Sergi López]] || Captain Vidal |- | Ariadna Gil || Carmen |- | [[Maribel Verdú]] || Mercedes |- | Alex Angulo || Doctor Ferreiro |- | Roger Casamajor || Pedro |- | César Vea || Serrano |} ==Influences== Del Toro has said the film has strong connections in theme to [[The Devil's Backbone]] and should be seen as an informal sequel dealing with some of the issues raised there<ref>[http://www.festival-cannes.fr/films/fiche_film.php?langue=6002&id_film=4359827#news ''Pan's Labyrinth'' in the 2006 Cannes Film Festival]</li> <li id="_note-2">'''[[#_ref-2|^]]''' [http://www.deltorofilms.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5&start=0&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=&sid=2e4cd823ac827248f20a4820065589d2 Del Toro message board]</li></ol></ref>