Pan's Labyrinth

Pan's Labyrinth
Directed by	Guillermo del Toro
Written by	Guillermo del Toro
Produced by	Alfonso Cuarón Guillermo del Toro
Starring	Ivana Baquero Doug Jones Sergi López Maribel Verdú
Cinematography	Guillermo Navarro
Edited by	Bernat Vilaplana
Music by	Javier Navarrete
Distributed by	Warner Bros. Picturehouse
Release dates	October 11, 2006 October 20, 2006 24 November 2006 December 29, 2006 December 29, 2006 January 18, 2007
Running time	112 min.
Countries	Mexico Spain
Language	Spanish
Budget	USD $17 Million

Pan's Labyrinth is an Academy Award-winning 2006 Spanish language film written and directed by Guillermo del Toro. Its original Spanish title is [El laberinto del fauno] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), which refers to the faun of Roman mythology; the English title refers to the faun-like Greek god Pan.

The film, which has garnered several Golden Globe and Academy Award nominations, had its premiere in the 2006 Cannes Film Festival, and was released in the United Kingdom on November 24 2006. In the United States and Canada, it was given a limited release on December 29, 2006, with the nationwide release on January 19, 2007.

Plot

Template:Spoiler An opening prologue tells of Princess Moanna, daughter to the king of the underworld. The princess became curious about the world above and fled to the surface, where the brightness of the sun blotted out her memories. Princess Moanna eventually became lost and died, causing turmoil in her kingdom. However, the king always believed that her spirit would one day return, even if reincarnated in the form of another.

The story cuts to post-Civil War Spain in 1944, after Francisco Franco has come into power. Ofelia (Ivana Baquero), a young girl often absorbed in fairy tales, travels with her pregnant mother Carmen (Ariadna Gil) to meet Captain Vidal (Sergi López), Ofelia's new stepfather and father of Carmen's unborn child. Vidal is a brutal fascist devotee stationed at a countryside mill, where he has been assigned to seek out and eliminate a rogue republican militia.

On the way, Ofelia discovers a large insect resembling a praying mantis and walking stick bug, and she believes it to be a fairy. The creature follows the family to their new home, where it leads Ofelia to an ancient labyrinth. Before Ofelia can enter the labyrinth, however, she is stopped by Mercedes (Maribel Verdú), one of Vidal's maids and a secret spy for the rebel militia, which is led by her brother Pedro.

File:Panslabyrinthofelia.JPG

The faun gives Ofelia the Book of Crossroads, which explains her tasks.

That night, the creature appears in Ofelia's bedroom, where it morphs into a fairy and leads Ofelia through the labyrinth into a small clearing. There, Ofelia meets the faun (Doug Jones), who recognizes her as the long-lost Princess Moanna and assigns her three tasks to complete before the full moon to ensure that her "essence is intact."

File:Plpaleman.jpg

The Pale Man awakens and examines his surroundings.

Ofelia easily completes the first task - retrieving a key from the belly of a giant toad - however, she fears for her mother, whose condition is worsening. The faun gives Ofelia a mandrake root, which instantly clears her mother's illness. Ofelia then manages to complete the second task - taking an ornate dagger from the lair of the cannibalistic Pale Man - but not without losing two of the faun's fairies. Infuriated, the faun disappears, claiming that she will never return to her kingdom or see him again.

Meanwhile, Vidal becomes increasingly vicious in his methods, torturing a captured Republican and killing the doctor who euthanized the prisoner out of pity. Vidal catches Ofelia tending to the mandrake root, and Carmen, desperate to prove to her daughter that magic is not real, throws the root into the fireplace. Instantly, she develops painful contractions and dies giving birth to a son.

Vidal discovers Mercedes to be a rebel sympathizer, 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 and flees into the woods, where Pedro and his militia rescue her.

The faun returns to Ofelia, claiming that he will give her one more chance to prove herself. He tells her to take her baby brother into the labyrinth. Ofelia manages to steal the baby after sedating Vidal; however, although disoriented, Vidal continues to chase her through the labyrinth amidst a chaotic attack on the mill by the Republicans.

Upon her arrival in the clearing, the faun demands that Ofelia spill her brother's blood to open the portal to the underworld. Ofelia refuses to harm her brother, and the faun disappears, accepting her decision. Vidal then takes the baby and shoots Ofelia. As he staggers out of the labyrinth, he finds the militia waiting for him and is killed by Pedro.

As Mercedes enters the labyrinth and mourns over Ofelia's body, Ofelia is reunited with the king and queen of the underworld. She learns that by spilling her own blood instead of her brother's, she has proven herself to be the true Princess Moanna. The epilogue tells that Ofelia ruled the kingdom for many centuries, was adored by her people, and left signs of her life on Earth, visible only to those who knew where to look. The ending is intentionally ambigous about whether the events are real or exists in Ofelia's imagination only - however, director del Toro has stated that he believes in the former explanation, and some clues given in the movie support this point of view. Template:Endspoiler

Cast

File:Ivana Baquero in Pan's Labyrinth.jpg

Ivana Baquero with one of the magical characters

• Ivana Baquero as Ofelia: Del Toro says he was "scared shitless" in casting the right actress for the lead role, and that finding the 11-year old Spanish actress was purely accidental. "The character I wrote was initially younger, about 8 or 9 and Ivana came in and she was a little older than the character, with this curly hair which I never imagined the girl having. But I loved her first reading, my wife was crying and the camera woman was crying after her reading and I knew hands down Ivana was the best actress that had shown up, yet I knew that I needed to change the screenplay to accommodate her age." Baquero says that del Toro sent her lots of comics and fairytales to help her "get more into the atmosphere of Ofelia and more into what she felt." She says she thought the film was "marvelous", and that "At the same time it can bring you pain and sadness and scariness and happiness."
• Doug Jones as The Faun and The Pale Man: Jones had worked with del Toro before on Mimic and Hellboy, and says the director sent him an email saying "You must be in this film. No one else can play this part but you". Jones read an English translation of the script and was enthusiastic but then found out the film was in Spanish, which he did not speak. Jones says he was "terrified" and del Toro suggested using a voice over actor to dub over him later, or learning Spanish phonetically, but Jones rejected both ideas preferring to learn it himself. He said "I really, really buckled down and committed myself to learning that word for word and I got the pronunciation semi right before I even went in", using the five hours a day he spent getting the costume and make-up to practice the words. Del Toro decided afterwards that he still preferred to dub Jones with the voice of "an authoritative theatre actor", but Jones's efforts remained valuable because the voice actor was able to easily match his delivery with Jones's mouth movements.
• Sergi López as Captain Vidal: Del Toro met with López in Barcelona, a year and a half before filming began, to ask him to play Vidal. López said of it, "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." In Spain, López was considered a melodramatic or comedic actor, and the producers told del Toro "You should be very careful because you don’t know about these things because you're Mexican, but this guy is not going to be able to deliver the performance"; del Toro replied "Well, it’s not that I don't know, it's that I don't care."
• Ariadna Gil as Carmen
• Maribel Verdú as Mercedes: Like López, Verdú was cast against type; usually playing a sex goddess, del Toro selected her to play the compassionate revolutionary because he "saw a sadness in her...he thought would be perfect for the part".
• Alex Angulo as Doctor Ferreiro
• Roger Casamajor as Pedro
• César Vea as Serrano

Reception

The film has received universal critical acclaim, earning a 96 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes and a 98 percent rating at Metacritic. Mark Kermode, in The Observer, labelled 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". Stephanie Zacharek wrote that the film "works on so many levels that it seems to change shape even as you watch it", and Jim Emerson found the film "as gruesome and brutal as it is enchanting and spellbinding". 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." 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..." As of February 24, 2007, it is No. 59 on IMDB's top 250.

During its limited first three weeks at the United States box office, the film made US$5,430,000. As of February 12, 2007, it has grossed around $26 million in North America, and grossed $52 million worldwide. At the Cannes Film Festival, it received a 22-minute standing ovation.

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. 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." However, in 2007, del Toro admitted to the striking similarities between his film and C.S. Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia, which both 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." Some of the works he drew on for inspiration include Jorge Luis Borges' Labyrinths, 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. And, intentional or not, it even bears a few likenings to Alice in Wonderland, especially in the illustrations in Ofelia's book and the green dress Ofelia wears right before her first task. The movie also borrows from themes popular in Spanish and Mexican culture and literature, including loss of innocence and the idea of magic existing as long as you believe.

Comparison to other films

In addition to The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe, Pan's Labyrinth has also been compared to films such as Hayao Miyazaki's Spirited Away, Gabor Csupo's Bridge to Terabithia and Jim Henson's Labyrinth. Del Toro himself has noted similarities with The Spirit of the Beehive.

Soundtrack

Untitled

The film's composer Javier Navarrete built the entire soundtrack around a simple lullaby tune heard in the film. Del Toro insisted that Navarrete's entire score, much of which was omitted during editing, be included on the album.

Track list

1. "Long, Long Time Ago (Hace Mucho, Mucho Tiempo)" – 2:14
2. "The Labyrinth (El Laberinto)" – 4:07
3. "Rose, Dragon (La Rosa y el Dragón)" – 3:36
4. "The Fairy and the Labyrinth (El Hada y el Laberinto)" – 3:36
5. "Three Trials (Las Tres Pruebas)" – 2:06
6. "The Moribund Tree and the Toad (El Árbol Que Muere y el Sapo)" – 7:12
7. "Guerilleros (Guerrilleros)" – 2:06
8. "A Book of Blood (El Libro de Sangre)" – 3:47
9. "Mercedes Lullaby (Nana de Mercedes)" – 1:39
10. "The Refuge (El Refugio)" – 1:32
11. "Not Human (El Que No Es Humano)" – 5:55
12. "The River (El Río)" – 2:50
13. "A Tale (Un Cuento)" – 1:55
14. "Deep Forest (Bosque Profundo)" – 5:48
15. "Waltz of the Mandrake (Vals de La Mandrágora)" – 3:42
16. "The Funeral (El Funeral)" – 2:45
17. "Mercedes (Mercedes)" – 5:37
18. "Pan and the Full Moon (La Luna Llena y el Fauno)" – 5:08
19. "Ofelia (Ofelia)" – 2:19
20. "A Princess (Una Princesa)" – 4:03
21. "Pan's Labyrinth Lullaby (Nana del Laberinto del Fauno)" – 1:47

Awards

Oscars

• Cinematography
• Makeup
• Art Direction

Academy Awards

• Achievement in Art Direction
• Achievement in Cinematography
• Achievement in Makeup

British Academy of Film and Television Arts

• Best Foreign Language Film
• Best Costume Design
• Makeup and Hair

Goya Awards

• Best Cinematography (Mejor Fotografía)
• Best Editing (Mejor Montaje)
• Best Make Up & Hairstyles (Mejor Maquillaje y/o Peluquería)
• Best New Actress (Mejor Actriz Revelación) Ivana Baquero.
• Best Screenplay - Original (Mejor Guión Original)
• Best Sound (Mejor Sonido)
• Best Special Effects (Mejores Efectos Especiales)

Other prizes

• Best Fantasy Film from the Production Design Awards
• Best Picture of the Year from the National Society of Film Critics
• Best Foreign Language Film from San Francisco Film Critics Circle
• Best Foreign Language Film from Washington D.C. Area Film Critics Association
• Best Foreign Language Film from Southeastern Film Critics Association
• Best Foreign Language Film and Best Cinematography from Florida Film Critics Circle
• Best Foreign Language Film and Best Original Screenplay from Online Film Critics Society
• Best Foreign Language Film and Best Cinematography from Boston Society of Film Critics
• Best Cinematography from New York Film Critics Circle
• Best Cinematography from the Independent Spirit Awards
• Best Cinematography from Camerimage Golden Frog Awards 2006
• Best Production Design from Los Angeles Film Critics Association
• Motion Picture, Animated or Mixed Media from Satellite Awards

Nominations

Golden Globe

• Nominated for Best Foreign Film

British Academy of Film and Television Arts

• Best Original Screenplay
• Best Cinematography
• Best Production Design
• Best Sound
• Achievement in Special Visual Effects

Academy Awards

• Best Foreign Language Film of the Year
• Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures (Original Score)
• Original Screenplay

Oscars

• Achievement in Art Direction
• Achievement in Cinematography
• Best Foreign Language Film of the Year
• Achievement in Makeup
• Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures (Original Score)
• Original Screenplay

External links

• Official site
• Pan's Labyrinth at Rotten Tomatoes
• Pan's Labyrinth at IMDb
• Pan's Labyrinth at Box Office Mojo
• Pan's People, samples from del Toro's sketchbook
• Official Pan's Labyrinth Myspace
• Weavers of Dreams - the creature creations of Pan's Labyrinth
• Radio (Fresh Air) Interview
• Soundtrack Review at Tracksounds