For many, “Pan’s Labyrinth” will be difficult to watch. Not because of its limited release, the general inability to cope with subtitles or the gap in American public education regarding the Spanish Civil War. These obstacles are easily overcome. But “Labyrinth” is so deeply unnerving, so agonizingly dark and so astonishingly beautiful, that it might compel you to go home and paint your walls black just to lift your spirits. Whatever you do, don’t bring any children along (unless you’re a sadistic bastard looking to put a permanent hold on that child’s emotional development). “Labyrinth” is a fairy tale, but it is not for children.
The film is a benchmark for the growing genre of magical realism in which fantasy and reality are so deeply entwined that such a distinction is moot; Guillermo del Toro’s re-examination of fairytale conventions takes shape in a 1944 post-Civil War Spain where republican guerilla forces refuse to give in to Franco’s fascist rule.
Del Toro’s past films were raucous adventures filled with humor and special effects, from the ego-driven and CGI-addled “Blade II” to the more refined but equally absurd “Hellboy,” which managed to be genuinely entertaining in its own smash-‘em-up kind of way. But his latest offering transcends all this, maturing into a compelling masterpiece — full of love and cruelty, faith and deceit — delivered with seamless effects, rich, dark and frightening.
Ofelia (Ivana Baquero), an “Alice in Wonderland” prototype, and her heavily pregnant mother Carmen (Ariadna Gil) go to live with their new breadwinner, the cold and calculating Capt. Vidal (Sergi López), a ruthless tyrant who would make any Axis general proud. Vidal busies himself with distributing rations to oppressed Spanish villagers while trying to keep the guerillas at bay. Carmen goes straight to bed for the remainder of the film and Ofelia, lost in the private fantasies of her books, is visited by a hideous yet graceful foot-long insect which, silhouetted against a drawing from one of her books, transforms into a devilish little fairy and leads her into the nearby ancient labyrinth.
At the center of the labyrinth resides an archaic creature, the unsettlingly friendly and masterfully rendered faun named Pan (although the name is never mentioned in the film) who sends her to accomplish three tasks in order to reclaim her crown as princess of an underworld kingdom. As Ofelia falters her way through barbed assignments, Pan’s charming speech and seductive manner begin to fade, revealing an ulterior motive as twisted as his coiled horns. He grows impatient and severe, and obvious parallels emerge between his demands for unquestioning obedience and Vidal’s oppressive cruelty.
“Labyrinth” is laced with visceral brutality and disturbing aggression, but these moments of graphic violence are not the fodder of the American audience’s lust for gore — they serve a distinct purpose in the intentionally unsettling narrative, where innocence offers no protection from the world’s evil. With obvious correlations between the cruel Vidal and the demanding Pan (Doug Jones), del Toro explores obedience for the sake of obedience and defiance for the sake of defiance as the two figures, ever towering over the impish 12-year-old, never cease to exert their terrible will with cruel domination or callous seduction. The constant and resounding theme is of the individual’s struggle to maintain both dignity and free will, all while trying to survive the boot of tyranny, in whatever form it has taken.
López breaths dire humanity into the callous Capt. Vidal, to the point where the viewer nearly empathizes with his monstrous deeds. His brutality is the stuff of nightmares, but still, in him we start to see the faintest terrifying shadows of ourselves. Child actress Baquero does for Ofelia what Haley Joel Osment did for the horror-stricken Cole in the “Sixth Sense.” Maribel Verdú (of “Y tu Mama Tambien” fame) provides the most powerful performance in the film as Vidal’s housemaid/guerilla informant, Mercedes.
Already with 14 various film award wins and 47 nominations, a Golden Globe nod and now Oscar buzz for best foreign film, del Toro will no doubt run out of shelf space for not only the myriad recognitions “Pan’s Labyrinth” already has, but also those the film has yet to receive.
