Cinema Hype

Fairy tales are common fodder for movies these days–from Into the Woods-style updates to a recent film about the Brothers Grimm, studios and audiences seem to agree that classic stories bear telling and re-telling. The Oscar-nominated film Pan’s Labyrinth is a fairy tale, but not the kind you’d bring your kids to: rich with archetypal images and story devices, it’s a fairy tale as they were meant to be–lush, dark, and with no guarantee of anybody living happily ever after.

Pan’s Labyrinth follows Ofelia (Ivana Baquero), a young girl, to the country home of her wicked stepfather Sergi Lopez), one of Franco’s generals in the Spanish Civil War. There she finds an ancient labyrinth in the woods and enters into a kind of imaginary (or is it?) parallel world, complete with a hero’s quest meant just for her.

The world of the labyrinth is no “over the rainbow” kind of place–it’s dark, dangerous, and full of otherworldly creatures, none of whom are all that friendly. There is an unpredictable kind of peril in the labyrinth. But that’s more or less the point: Director Guillermo del Toro plays up the weirdness with visuals that are stunning in concept and in execution, so that even the most off-putting images are fascinating (a certain gaunt, flabby, eyes-in-his-hands creature comes to mind here). Everything is a little bit frightening, a with a little bit of a sense of danger, but also an appealing kind of sheen.

The spectacular macabreness of the labyrinth, however, is only part of the story. It’s an element of contrast: the imaginary world is unnerving, but Ofelia’s real life is so grim and her stepfather so frightening that time spent in the labyrinth is a relief. del Toro’s portrayal of Captain Vidal is as harsh and as efficient as a punch to the gut–he wastes no time in displaying the extent of the Captain’s capacity for violence. Pan’s Labyrinth is graphically gory, but the brutality is necessary for reasons of both plot and tone. Blood is an important part of many fairy tales, and any war story is bound to include bloodshed as a matter of course. The gore also raises the pitch of the movie, making it feel all the more chaotic and Ofelia’s situation all the more dire.

The basic elements of Pan’s Labyrinth are all strong, but what sets it apart and makes it truly satisfying is that the fairy-tale theme doesn’t end with the weird creatures. Much of what we see is familiar, even in its bizarreness, and del Toro weaves it all together beautifully in the end. He makes everything count and works with what he has in unexpected ways, honoring the roots of his chosen genre but not retreading the same ground over and over. The result is Grimm-ian: dark, possibly depressing, but with a kind of self-contained logic that a fairy tale reader can appreciate.

The upshot: Violent, but worth it. Just beautiful. Also, look out for the super-fantastic eye-hand guy!

Pan’s Labyrinth, Guillermo del Toro, Oscars