Pan's Labyrinth: Film Review

Pan’s Labyrinth was set during 1944 in Spain during the World War II. Ofelia, a girl who is fascinated with fantasies and fairy-tales was sent with her sick pregnant mother to live with her stepfather known as Captain Vidal is an unforgiving and a hard-hearted captain of the Spanish Army. During the night, she saw the insect that she saw earlier when they were on their way to her step father’s. The insect becomes much more like a fairy and it leads her to the labyrinth in the middle of the night. She drop few stairs and saw a creepy fraun that tells her that she is a princess in their world. But before that, she needs  to complete three task in order for her to get back to her real home. It’s not easy for her to complete those three task because while she was trying to achieve those, she also encounter problems that she need to face in the real world, specially when her mother died. She need to face the reality that she lost her mother and her only companion was Mercedes. Things didn’t get that much easy, Captain Vidal catches her and Merceds in the forest. Captain Vidal brings Merceds to a room to torture her but the outcome was different. Vidal was the one who were stabbed. Mercedes run free and the rebels save her life. On the other hand, Ofelia was given a second chance by the Fraun but she was ordered by the fraun to steal her brother while she was running from the stabbed Captain Vidal. When she arrived in the Labyrinth, she was ask her to spill some blood of his brother in order for her to get back to her world. As a good sister, she refuses to do so. When vidal found her, he get his son and shot her. When Vidal was on the end on the Labyrinth he saw his rivals with Mercedes. That time, he already that he will die, so he gave his Son to Mercedes and after that he was shot. Mercedes found Ofelia inside the Labyrinth dead and her blood drops into the pool the reason why it opens the passage to the other world. She saw her real parents seating in a thrones and the one was for her. She also saw the fairies and the fraun. She Finally smile and realized that she is finally back at her real home. 


GIANT TOAD & FIG TREE

        I really love how Guillermo Del Toro, the director, chose the theme of the story and how he shows foreshadowing in the scenes. In the movie, ofelia had 3 task, she needs to complete those tasks in order for her to return to her home world. The first task that was given to her was to feed three magic stones to the giant toad that lives inside an ancient fig tree. Ofelia, believes that her baby brother is the reason why her mother got sick. One of the symbolism that I saw in the movie was the tree, the tree symbolizes as the Faun because the tree really matches the look of the Faun in the movie, it could also represent as the reproductive system of her mother because when you look at the poster of the movie itself, the shape of the tree looks like the reproductive system of a female. The Toad symbolizes as Ofelia’s baby brother since the Giant Toad lives inside the ancient tree that represents her mother’s reproductive system. Additional to the that, the key symbolizes as the Phallus/ of the male.

PALE MAN & VIDAL

                                        

As her second task, Ofelia entered a room and saw a freaking-creepy monster that has long nails and has no eyes on his face. The faun warned her to just retreive the item and don’t be tempted to the fruits that was placed above the table because when she eat a grape, the monster gets awaken. She can’ resist but eat, and this was the reason why the monster awakens and saw her inside that room. What could be the symbolism of this? For me, the monster symbolizes Captain Vidal, he is a control freak, Ofelia knows that she will not be able to defeat him, but on his world, she must kill that monster in order for her to defeat Captain Vidal in the reality. Another symbolism is the fairy, they represents as ths children. During the Spanish Era, the children doesn’t have any childhood, meaning, it is either they were killed or they will not be able to experience the fun of being a child. The fairy were being killed by the monster like how the children were being killed during that certain time.

BABY BROTHER

Her third and last task was to bring her baby brother in the labyrinth and offer his blood in order for her to be back in her real home yet she refused to do so, the reason why she remain in the reality world. But unfortunately, she was killed by Captain Vidal because she was caught by him. The good part is, she was able to get back to her imaginary world. It represents that she is a good person/sister because she chose to live even and save her brother, even though she knows that she will not be able to enjoy her life in this world.

FASCISM

I think one of the current issues that I can relate in the movie is Fascism. President Duterte and Captain Vidal are both straightforward and  both the highest in authority in their area. Whatever they say are already law to their men or soldiers and it shall be done by the people under them and if they question their rule, or disagree with their rule, legal punishment shall be implemented. There was a scene in the movie that Vidal shot the two men who just hunt for rabbits because they believed that they did something malicious. In the current event, the war on drugs, where in policemen doesn't truly know the background of those people and yet they still tend to kill them. Both Vidal and Duterte have the same attitude and way of ruling their people.

PERSONAL REFLECTION

MY PERSONAL REFLECTION ABOUT THE FILM
If I will rate this movie, I will give it a 10/10. I really love the flow of the story and the story itself. It may be hard to understand some of the parts but when you watched the whole film, you will be able to know and analyze deeper meanings in the scenes. I also love how they show those meaning indirectly and how the other world were connected to the other.  At some point, I was quite nervous and scared when some of the brutal scene where shown in the movie. But overall, it was a nice movie. I love the concept, and how the movie was made; the flow of the story where in it started with a flashback.