| Pan's Labyrinth | |
|---|---|
Theatrical release poster |
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| Directed by | Guillermo del Toro |
| Produced by | Guillermo del Toro Alfonso Cuarón Bertha Navarro Frida Torresblanco Alvaro Augustin |
| Written by | Guillermo del Toro |
| Narrated by | Pablo Adán |
| Starring | Ivana Baquero Doug Jones Sergi López Maribel Verdú Ariadna Gil Álex Angulo |
| Music by | Javier Navarrete |
| Cinematography | Guillermo Navarro |
| Editing by | Bernat Vilaplana |
| Studio | Tequila Gang[1] Estudios Picasso Telecinco Cinema |
| Distributed by | Warner Bros. (Spain) Picturehouse (United States) New Line Home Entertainment (Home Video) |
| Release date(s) | October 11, 2006 (Spain) October 20, 2006 (Mexico) December 29, 2006 (United States) |
| Running time | 112 minutes |
| Country | Mexico |
| Language | Spanish |
| Budget | $19 million[2] |
| Box office | $83,258,226[2] |
Pan's Labyrinth (Spanish: El laberinto del fauno, "The Faun's Labyrinth") is a 2006 Mexican Spanish-language dark fantasy film,[3][4] written and directed by Mexican film-maker Guillermo del Toro. It was produced and distributed by the Mexican film company Esperanto Films. The film was selected by the Academia Mexicana de Artes y Ciencias Cinematográficas (English: Mexican Academy of Film Arts and Sciences) to represent the country in the Oscars for Best Foreign Language Film.
Pan's Labyrinth takes place in Spain in May–June 1944, five years after the Spanish Civil War, during the early Francoist period. The narrative of the film interweaves this real world with a fantasy world centered around an overgrown abandoned labyrinth and a mysterious faun creature, with which the main character, Ofelia, interacts. Ofelia's stepfather, the Falangist Captain Vidal, hunts the Spanish Maquis who fight against the Fascist reign in the region, while Ofelia's pregnant mother grows increasingly ill. Ofelia meets several strange and magical creatures who become central to her story, leading her through the trials of the old labyrinth garden. The film employs make-up, animatronics and CGI effects to bring life to its creatures.
Del Toro stated that he considers the story to be a parable, influenced by fairy tales, and that it addresses and continues themes related to his earlier film The Devil's Backbone (2001),[4] to which Pan's Labyrinth is a spiritual successor, according to del Toro in his director's commentary on the DVD. The original Spanish title refers to the mythological fauns of Roman mythology, while the English, German, and French titles refer specifically to the faun-like Greek character Pan. However, del Toro has stated that the faun in the film is not Pan.[4]
The film premiered at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival. It was released in the United Kingdom on November 24, 2006. In the United States and Canada, the film was given a limited release on December 29, 2006, with a wide release on January 19, 2007.[5] Pan's Labyrinth has won numerous international awards, including three Academy Awards, the Ariel Award for Best Picture, the first Saturn Award for Best International Film and the 2007 Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form. The movie was filmed in a Scots Pine forest situated in the Guadarrama mountain range, Central Spain.
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The movie opens with a fairy tale. In it, Princess Moanna, whose father is the king of the underworld, becomes curious about the world above. When she goes to the surface, the sunlight blinds her and erases her memory. She becomes very ill and eventually dies. The king believes that her spirit will come back to the underworld someday.
The story cuts to post-Civil War Spain in 1944, after Francisco Franco has come into power. Ofelia (Baquero), a young girl who loves fairy tales, travels with her pregnant mother Carmen (Gil) to meet Captain Vidal (López), her new stepfather and father of Carmen's unborn child. Vidal, the son of a famed commander who died in Morocco, believes strongly in fascism and was assigned to root out any anti-fascist rebels.
Ofelia discovers a large insect resembling a stick insect which she believes to be a fairy. It follows her to the mill where Vidal is stationed and leads Ofelia into an ancient labyrinth nearby. Before Ofelia can enter, she is stopped by Mercedes (Verdú), one of Vidal's maids who is spying for the rebels. That night, the insect appears in Ofelia's bedroom, where it changes into a fairy and leads her through the labyrinth. There, she meets the faun (Doug Jones), who believes her to be Princess Moanna and gives her three tasks to complete before the full moon to ensure that her "essence is intact". Meanwhile, Vidal's cruelty and sociopathic nature is revealed when he brutally murders two individuals who had been detained on suspicion of being rebel allies and who may merely have been rebel farmers. This scene is credited by critics to be one of the most brutal scenes in film history.
Ofelia completes the first task of retrieving a key from the belly of a giant toad, but she becomes worried about her mother whose condition is worsening. The faun gives Ofelia a mandrake root, which instantly begins to cure her mother's illness.
Accompanied by three fairy guides, Ofelia then completes the second task of retrieving an ornate dagger from the lair of the Pale Man (Jones as well), a child-eating monster who sits silently in front of a large feast. Although she was gravely warned not to consume anything, she eats two grapes, awakening him. He eats two of the fairies and chases her, but she manages to escape. Infuriated at her disobedience, the faun refuses to give her the third task.
Meanwhile, Vidal becomes increasingly vicious, torturing a captured rebel and then killing the doctor who euthanized the tortured prisoner to stop his pain. Vidal catches Ofelia tending to the mandrake root, and Carmen throws it into the fireplace, where it then begins to writhe and scream in agony. Instantly, Carmen develops painful contractions and dies giving birth to a son. Vidal discovers that Mercedes is a spy, and he captures her and Ofelia as they attempt to escape. Ofelia is locked in her bedroom, and Mercedes is taken to be tortured; however, she frees herself, badly injures Vidal, and flees into the woods, where the rebels rescue her.
The faun returns to Ofelia and gives her one more chance to prove herself. He tells her to take her baby brother into the labyrinth. Ofelia steals the baby after sedating Vidal; although disoriented, Vidal continues to chase her through the labyrinth while the rebels attack the mill. The faun tells Ofelia that the portal to the underworld will open only with an innocent's blood, so he needs a drop of her brother's blood. Ofelia refuses to harm her brother, and eventually Vidal finds her, seemingly talking to herself as the faun is not visible through his eyes. The faun leaves Ofelia to her choice, and Vidal takes the baby away from her, shooting her immediately after.
When he leaves the labyrinth the rebels and Mercedes are waiting for him. Knowing that he will die, he calmly hands Mercedes the baby. He takes out his watch, ready to break it, and tells Mercedes to tell his son about his exploits, reflecting his own father's death. Mercedes refuses, telling him that his son will never even know his name. Pedro, one of the rebels and Mercedes' brother, draws his weapon and shoots Vidal in the right cheek, killing him.
As Mercedes enters the labyrinth and comforts the dying girl, drops of Ofelia's blood spill onto the altar that is supposed to lead her into the underworld. Ofelia is reunited with the king and queen of the underworld. The faun is present too, and the king reveals to her that by shedding her own blood instead of the blood of an innocent, she has completed the final task and proven herself to be Princess Moanna. In the mortal world, Ofelia dies and Mercedes mourns her death. In an epilogue, a narration dictates that Princess Moanna ruled the underworld with a just and kind heart, but left behind "small traces of her time on earth, visible only to those who know where to look."
The idea for Pan's Labyrinth came from Guillermo del Toro's notebooks, which he says are filled with "doodles, ideas, drawings and plot bits". He had been keeping these notebooks for twenty years. At one point during production, he left the notebook in a taxi in London and was distraught, but the cabbie returned it to him two days later. Though he originally wrote a story about a pregnant woman who falls in love with a faun,[11] Sergi López said that del Toro described the final version of the plot a year and a half before filming. Lopez said that "for two hours and a half he explained to me all the movie, but with all the details, it was incredible, and when he finished I said, 'You have a script?' He said, 'No, nothing is written'". López agreed to act in the movie and received the script one year later; he's said that "it was exactly the same, it was incredible. In his little head he had all the history with a lot of little detail, a lot of characters, like now when you look at the movie, it was exactly what he had in his head".[12]
Del Toro got the idea of the faun from childhood experiences with "lucid dreaming". He stated on The Charlie Rose Show that every midnight, he would wake up, and a faun would gradually step out from behind the grandfather's clock.[13] Originally, the faun was supposed to be a classic half-man, half-goat faun fraught with beauty. But in the end, the faun was altered into a goat-faced creature almost completely made out of earth, moss, vines, and tree bark. He became a mysterious, semi-suspicious relic who gave both the impression of trustworthiness and many signs that warn someone to never confide in him at all.
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. Some of the other works he drew on for inspiration include Lewis Carroll's "Alice" books, Jorge Luis Borges' Ficciones, Arthur Machen's The Great God Pan and The White People, Lord Dunsany's The Blessing of Pan, Algernon Blackwood's Pan's Garden and Francisco Goya's works. In 2004, del Toro said: "Pan is an original story. Some of my favourite 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 and I am trying to mix them and play with them."[14] It was also influenced by the illustrations of Arthur Rackham.[15]
Del Toro wanted to include a fairy tale about a dragon for Ofelia to narrate to her unborn brother. The tale involved the dragon, named Varanium Silex, who guarded a mountain surrounded by thorns, but at its peak is a blue rose that can grant immortality. The dragon and the thorns ward off many men though, who decide it is better to avoid pain than to be given immortality. Although the scene was thematically important, it was cut short for budget reasons.[16]
There are differing ideas about the film's religious influences. Del Toro himself has said that he considers Pan's Labyrinth "a truly profane film, a layman's riff on Catholic dogma", but that his friend Alejandro González Iñárritu described it as "a truly Catholic film". Del Toro's explanation is "once a Catholic, always a Catholic".[15]
Guillermo Navarro, the director of photography, said that "after doing work in Hollywood on other movies and with other directors, working in our original language in different scenery brings me back to the original reasons I wanted to make movies, which is basically to tell stories with complete freedom and to let the visuals really contribute to the telling of the story".[17]
Pan's Labyrinth employs some computer generated imagery in its effects, but mostly uses complex make-up and animatronics. The giant toad was inspired by The Maze. Del Toro himself performed the noises. The mandrake root is a combination of animatronics and CGI. Del Toro wanted the fairies "to look like little monkeys, like dirty fairies", but the animation company had the idea to give them wings made of leaves.[18]
Jones spent an average of five hours sitting in the makeup chair as his team of David Marti, Montse Ribe and Xavi Bastida applied the makeup for the Faun, which was mostly latex foam. The last piece to be applied was the pair of horns, which weighed ten pounds and were extremely tiring to wear. The legs were a unique design, with Jones standing on eight-inch-high lifts, and the legs of the Faun attached to his own. His lower leg was eventually digitally erased in post production. Servos in the head flapped the Faun's ears and blinked the eyes, and were remotely operated by David Marti and Xavi Bastida from DDT Efectos Especiales while on set. Del Toro told Jones to "go rock star... like a glam rocker. But less David Bowie, more Mick Jagger".[18]
The Captains room, as shown in the scene where Captain Vidal is shown shaving, is supposed to resemble the directors fathers watch, which he says represents his troubled mind.[19]
A bout of weight loss on Del Toro's part inspired the saggy-skinned Pale Man.[20] In order to see while performing the part, Doug Jones had to look out of the character's nostrils, and its legs were attached to the front of the green leotard which Jones wore.[21]
The film uses subtitles for its translation into other languages, including English. Del Toro wrote them himself, because he was disappointed with the subtitles of his previous Spanish film, The Devil's Backbone. In an interview, he said that they were "for the thinking impaired" and "incredibly bad". He spent a month working with two other people, and said that he did not want it to "feel like... watching a subtitled film".[22]
Pan's Labyrinth was first released at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival on May 27, 2006. Its first premiere in an English-speaking country was at the London FrightFest Film Festival on August 25, 2006.[23] Its first general release was in Spain on October 11, 2006, followed by a release in Mexico nine days later.[23] On November 24, 2006 it had its first general English release in the United Kingdom; that month it was also released in France, Serbia, Belgium, Italy, Russia, Singapore and South Korea.[23] It had a limited release in Canada and the United States of America on December 29, 2006, in Australia on January 18, 2007, in Taiwan on April 27, 2007, in Slovenia on May 17, 2007 and in Japan on September 29, 2007.[23] Its widest release in the United States was in 1,143 cinemas.[5]
The film was released on DVD on March 12, 2007 in the UK by Optimum Releasing in a two-disc special edition. The film was released in the United States on May 15, 2007 from New Line Home Entertainment in both single-disc and double-disc special edition versions, featuring an additional DTS-ES audio track not present on the UK version. Additionally, the film received a special limited edition release in South Korea and Germany. Only 20,000 copies of this edition were manufactured. It is presented in a digipak designed to look like the Book of Crossroads. The Korean first edition contains two DVDs along with an art book and replica of Ofelia's key. The German special limited edition contains three DVDs and a book containing the movie's storyboard. Pan's Labyrinth was released for download on June 22, 2007 from Channel 4's on-demand service, 4oD.
High definition versions of Pan's Labyrinth were released in December 2007 on both Blu-ray Disc and HD DVD formats. New Line has stated that due to their announcement of supporting Blu-ray exclusively, thus dropping HD DVD support with immediate effect, Pan's Labyrinth will be the first and last HD DVD release for the studio, and would be discontinued after current stock is depleted.[24] Both versions had a PiP commentary while web extras were exclusive to the HD DVD version.[25][26]
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| Ariel Awards |
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| BAFTA Awards |
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| Constellation Awards |
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| Fantasporto |
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| Goya Awards |
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| National Society of Film Critics |
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| Saturn Awards |
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| Spacey Awards |
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Pan's Labyrinth received virtually universal critical acclaim, possessing a 95% rating on Rotten Tomatoes,[27] and a 100 percent rating among the "Cream of the Crop" critics.[27] It received a 98% rating at Metacritic,[28] making it Metacritic's fourth highest rated movie of all time, and the highest of all films reviewed upon their original release.[29] At its Cannes Film Festival release, it received a 22 minute standing ovation.[30] It also received a standing ovation at the 2006 Toronto International Film Festival,[31] its first release in the Americas.
Mark Kermode, in The Observer, labeled Pan's Labyrinth as the best film of 2006, describing it as "an epic, poetic vision in which the grim realities of war are matched and mirrored by a descent into an underworld populated by fearsomely beautiful monsters".[32] Stephanie Zacharek wrote that the film "works on so many levels that it seems to change shape even as you watch it",[33] and Jim Emerson called the film "a fairy tale of such potency and awesome beauty that it reconnects the adult imagination to the primal thrill and horror of the stories that held us spellbound as children".[34] Roger Ebert reviewed the film after his surgery and it was put on his Great Movies series on August 27, 2007[35] and when he did his belated top ten films of 2006 Pan's Labyrinth was #1 with him stating "But even in a good year I'm unable to see everything. And I'm still not finished with my 2006 discoveries. I'm still looking at more 2007 movies, too, and that list will run as usual in late December. Nothing I am likely to see, however, is likely to change my conviction that the year's best film was Pan's Labyrinth".[36] The New Yorker's Anthony Lane took special note of the film's sound design, saying it "discards any hint of the ethereal by turning up the volume on small, supercharged noises: the creak of the Captain's leather gloves... the nighttime complaints of floorboard and rafter...."[37] Some reviewers had criticisms, however: for The San Diego Union-Tribune, David Elliott said "the excitement is tangible", but added that "what it lacks is successful unity... Del Toro has the art of many parts, but only makes them cohere as a sort of fevered extravaganza".[38] New York Press critic Armond White criticized the film saying that the "superfluous addition of del Toro's fairy-tale sensibility to real human misery made that story insufferable [and that] only critics and fanboys (not the general public) fell for its titular allusion to Borges".[39] A.O. Scott included the film in his The New York Times Magazine essay "The most important films of the past decade — and why they mattered."[40]
During its limited first three weeks at the United States box office, the film made $5.4 million. As of March 1, 2007, it has grossed over $37 million in North America, and grossed $80 million worldwide.[5] In Spain, it grossed almost $12 million, and it is the fourth highest domestically grossing foreign film in the United States.[5] In the United States, it has generated $55 million from its DVD sales and rentals.[5][41]
Pan's Labyrinth has also earned BAFTA awards for Best Film Not in English, Costume Design, and Makeup and Hair.[42] At the Goya Awards, the Spanish equivalent of the Academy Awards, the film won in many categories including Best Cinematography, Editing, Make Up & Hairstyles, New Actress for Ivana Baquero, Original Screenplay, Sound and Special Effects. At Mexico's Ariel Awards, the movie won in 8 categories, including Best Movie and Best Director. The film won the top award at the 2007 edition of Fantasporto. At the 2007 Saturn Awards, it received accolades for Best International Film and Best Performance by a Younger Actor for Ivana Baquero.[43] The film also won "Best Film" at the 2007 Spacey Awards,[44] and "Best Science Fiction Film, TV Movie, or Mini-Series of 2006" at the 2007 Constellation Awards.[45] It also won the Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form in 2007.[46]
The film was also nominated for a number of other awards such as Best Foreign Film at the Academy Awards[47] and the Golden Globes[48] in 2007.
The film appeared on many critics' top ten lists of the best films of 2006.[49]
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General Top 10
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Ranked #5 in Empire magazines "The 100 Best Films Of World Cinema" in 2010.[50]
In a 2007 interview, del Toro noted the striking similarities between his film and Disney's The Chronicles of Narnia: both films are set around the same time, have similar child-age principal characters, mythic creatures (particularly the fauns), and themes of "disobedience and choice." Says del Toro: "This is my version of that universe, not only 'Narnia,' but that universe of children's literature."[51] In fact, del Toro was asked to direct The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe but turned it down for Pan's Labyrinth.[51]
In addition to Narnia, Pan's Labyrinth has also been compared to films such as Gabor Csupo's Bridge to Terabithia and Jim Henson's Labyrinth. Sucker Punch, a 2011 Hollywood movie by Zack Snyder also bears resemblance to this movie, in that the central plot of the protagonist retreats to a fantasy world. [52][53] Del Toro himself has noted similarities with The Spirit of the Beehive.[54]
Critics also note strong connections with the Spanish film, "Cria Cuervos" (1975, Saura) made while Franco was still in power. Doug Cummings (Film Journey 2007) identifies the connection between Cria Cuervos, Spirit of the Beehive and Pan's Labyrinth; "Critics have been summarily referencing Spirit of the Beehive (1973) in reviews of Pan’s Labyrinth, but Saura’s film–at once a sister work to Erice’s classic in theme, tone, even shared actress (Ana Torrent)–is no less rich a reference point."[55]
| Pan's Labyrinth | |
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| Soundtrack album by Javier Navarrete | |
| Released | December 19, 2006 |
| Genre | Contemporary Classical |
| Label | Milan Entertainment |
| Producer | Emmanuel Chamboredon, Ian P. Hierons |
The score for Pan's Labyrinth, composed by Javier Navarrete, was released on December 19, 2006.[56] Navarrete and the score were nominated for an Academy Award.[47] It was entirely structured around a lullaby, and del Toro had the entire score included on the soundtrack, even though much of it had been cut during production.[56] The art used for the soundtrack cover was the unutilized Drew Struzan promotional poster for the film.
<ref> tag; no text was provided for refs named IMDB; see Help:Cite errors/Cite error references no text| Awards | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by John Myhre and Gretchen Rau for Memoirs of a Geisha |
Academy Award for Best Art Direction Eugenio Caballero and Pilar Revuelta 2006 |
Succeeded by Dante Ferretti and Francesca Lo Schiavo for Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street |
| Preceded by Dion Beebe for Memoirs of a Geisha |
Academy Award for Best Cinematography Guillermo Navarro 2006 |
Succeeded by Robert Elswit for There Will Be Blood |
| Preceded by Tami Lane and Howard Berger for The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe |
Academy Award for Makeup David Martí and Montse Ribé 2006 |
Succeeded by Didier Lavergne and Jan Archibald for La Vie en Rose |
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