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Pan's Labyrinth

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Pan's Labyrinth
Pan's Labyrinth movie poster
Directed byGuillermo del Toro
Written byGuillermo del Toro
Produced byAlfonso Cuarón
Guillermo del Toro
Bertha Navarro
Frida Torresblanco
Alvaro Augustin
StarringIvana Baquero
Doug Jones
Sergi López
Maribel Verdú
Ariadna Gil
Álex Angulo
CinematographyGuillermo Navarro
Edited byBernat Vilaplana
Music byJavier Navarrete
Distributed byMexico Warner Bros.
Brazil
United Kingdom Optimum
United States Picturehouse
Release dates
Spain October 11, 2006
Mexico October 20, 2006
United Kingdom 24 November 2006
United States December 29, 2006
Running time
112 min.
119 min. (UK version)
CountriesSpain Spain
Mexico Mexico
LanguageSpanish
BudgetUSD $19 Million[1]
Box officeUSD $37 Million +

Pan's Labyrinth (Spanish: El laberinto del fauno, literally The Labyrinth of the Faun) is a Spanish, Academy Award-winning,[2] fantasy[1][3] film written and directed by Mexican film-maker Guillermo del Toro. Though the original title referred only to the mythological faun, the English title refers to the faun-like Greek god Pan. Del Toro has stated that the faun featured in the film is not actually Pan.[3]

The film, which garnered several Golden Globe and three Academy Awards, 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 a nationwide release on January 19, 2007.[4] Pan's Labyrinth has won numerous international awards.

Plot

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, she forgets about her life in the underworld and grows old and dies as a mortal. 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 sick-with-child 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 where she meets the faun (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 kills two farmers suspected of being rebels before searching them properly. After looking in their bag it is clear that they were hunting rabbits as they had said and were not rebels.

File:Panslabyrinthofelia.JPG
The faun gives Ofelia the Book of Crossroads, which explains her tasks.

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. He is a gaunt specter, with no eyes on his head but one eye on each hand. Although she was gravely warned not to consume anything, she eats two grapes, awakening him. He bites off two of the three fairies' heads 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 killing a doctor who euthanized the 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 scream. Instantly, she 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, mutilates Vidal with a hidden dagger, 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 needed a drop of her brother's blood. Ofelia refuses to harm her brother and the faun disappears. Vidal finds her, takes the baby and shoots Ofelia.

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 when he grows up what time his father died, reflecting his 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, killing him.

As Mercedes enters the labyrinth and mourns over 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. She learns that by giving her life to save her brother's, she has proven herself to be Princess Moanna, although the reality of the ending is deliberately left ambiguous, leaving it to the viewer to decide interpret the epilogue as reality or a mere dream."

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."[5] 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."[3]
  • 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.[6] 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.[7]
  • 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."[8] 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."[9]
  • 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".[9]
  • Alex Angulo as Doctor Ferreiro
  • Roger Casamajor as Pedro
  • César Vea as Serrano

Distribution

File:Pankorea.jpg
Korean edition of Pan's Labyrinth

Pan's Labyrinth was first released at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival on May 27 2006, where it received a twenty-two minute standing ovation.[10] Its first premiere in an English-speaking country was at the London FrightFest Film Festival on August 25 2006.[11] Its first general release was in Spain on October 11 2006, followed by a release in Mexico nine days later.[11] 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.[11] It had a limited release in Canada and the United States on December 29 2006 and in Australia on January 18 2007.[11] Its most recent release was in Slovenia on May 17 and its latest scheduled release will be in Japan on September 29 2007.[11] Its widest release in the United States was in 1,143 theatres.[4]

The film was released on DVD on March 12 2007 in the United Kingdom by Optimum Home Entertainment in a 2-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 Korea. Only 5,000 copies of this edition were manufactured. It is presented in a digipack designed to look like the Book of Crossroads, along with an art book and replica of Ofelia's key. Pans Labyrinth was released for download on June 22 2007 from Channel 4's on-demand service.

Reception

Academy Awards
  1. Best Art Direction
  2. Best Cinematography
  3. Best Makeup
Ariel Awards
  1. Best Director
  2. Best Movie
BAFTA Awards
  1. Best Costume Design
  2. Best Foreign Language Film
  3. Best Makeup & Hair
Fantasporto
  1. Best Film
Goya Awards
  1. Best Cinematography
  2. Best Editing
  3. Best Makeup and Hair
  4. Best New Actress (Ivana Baquero)
  5. Best Original Screenplay
  6. Best Sound
  7. Best Special Effects
National Society of Film Critics
  1. Best Picture
Saturn Awards
  1. Best International Film
  2. Best Performance by a Younger Actor
Spacey Awards
  1. Space Choice Awards

The film has earned a 96 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes[12] and a 100 percent rating among the "Cream of the Crop" critics.[12] It received a 98 percent rating at Metacritic,[13] making it Metacritic's fourth highest rated movie of all time.[14] At its Cannes Film Festival release, it received a twenty-two minute standing ovation.[10] It also received a standing ovation at the 2006 Toronto Film Festival,[15] 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".[16] Stephanie Zacharek wrote that the film "works on so many levels that it seems to change shape even as you watch it",[17] 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."[18] 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..."[19] As of May 14th 2007, it is No. 41 on IMDB's top 250.[20] and the No. 2 movie of 2006.[21] 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." [22]

During its limited first three weeks at the United States box office, the film made US$5,430,000. As of March 1, 2007, it has grossed $37 million in North America, and grossed around $80 million worldwide.[4] In its native Spain, it grossed almost $12 million, and it is the fourth highest domestically grossing foreign film in the United States.[4] It has generated $16 million from its DVD release. [4]

Awards

Pan's Labyrinth has won numerous film awards, including Best Picture from National Society of Film Critics,[23] and Academy Awards for Achievements in Cinematography, Makeup, and Art Direction.[24] It has also earned BAFTA awards for Best Foreign Language Film, Costume Design, and Makeup and Hair.[25] 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.[26] The film also won "Best Film" at the 2007 Spacey Awards.[27]

The film was also nominated for a number of other awards such as Best Foreign Film at the Academy Awards[24] and the Golden Globes[28] and the Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form in 2007.

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. Some of the other works he drew on for inspiration include 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 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."[29]

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."[30]

Comparisons to other films

In 2007, del Toro noted the striking similarities between his film and C. S. Lewis's 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."[31] 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.[31]

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.[32][33] Del Toro himself has noted similarities with The Spirit of the Beehive.[34]

Soundtrack

Untitled

The score for Pan's Labyrinth, composed by Javier Navarrete, was released on December 19, 2006.[35] Navarette and the score were nominated for an Academy Award.[24] It was entirely structured around a lullaby, and del Toro had the entire score be included on the soundtrack, even though much of it had been cut during production.[35]

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

References

  1. ^ a b Shafer, Craig (2007-01-18). "Amazing journey: Fantasy both frightening and beautiful lurks in this award-winning labyrinth". New Times SLO. Retrieved 2007-01-24. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  2. ^ Cite error: The named reference Acadamy Awards was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ a b c Spelling, Ian (2006-12-25). "Guillermo del Toro and Ivana Baquero escape from a civil war into the fairytale land of Pan's Labyrinth". Science Fiction Weekly. Retrieved 2007-01-27. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  4. ^ a b c d e "Pan's Labyrinth (2006)". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved 2007-02-12.
  5. ^ Fischer, Paul (2006-09-26). "Exclusive Interview: Guillermo del Toro "Pan's Labyrinth"". Dark Horizons. Retrieved 2007-01-28. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  6. ^ Topel, Fred (2006-12-27). "Doug Jones En Espanol". CanMag. Retrieved 2007-01-27. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  7. ^ Eisner, Ken (2007-01-11). "Labyrinth's faun unmasked". straight.com. Retrieved 2007-01-28. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  8. ^ Topel, Fred (2007-01-02). "Sergi Lopez on Pan's Labyrinth". CanMag. Retrieved 2007-01-27. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  9. ^ a b Stone, Sasha (2007-01-11). "Pan's Labyrinth: A Story that Needed Guillermo Del Toro". oscarwatch.com. Retrieved 2007-01-27. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  10. ^ a b Rodriguez, Rene (2007-01-16). "Director keeps Hollywood out of "Pan's Labyrinth"". The Miami Herald. Retrieved 2007-01-25. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  11. ^ a b c d e "IMDb Laberinto del fauno, El (2006) - Release Dates" Retrieved on June 10 2007
  12. ^ a b "Pan's Labyrinth". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved 2007-01-24.
  13. ^ "Pan's Labyrinth (2006)". Metacritic. Retrieved 2007-01-24.
  14. ^ "Best-Reviewed Movies". Metacritic. Retrieved 2007-06-09.
  15. ^ "Pan's Labyrinth Receives Standing Ovation at Toronto Film Fest". FirstShowing.Net. 2006-09-11. Retrieved 2007-06-17. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  16. ^ Kermode, Mark (2006-11-05). "Pain should not be sought - but it should never be avoided". The Observer. Retrieved 2007-01-25. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  17. ^ Zacharek, Stephanie (2006-10-13). "Pan's Labyrinth". Salon.com. Retrieved 2007-01-25. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  18. ^ Emerson, Jim (2006-12-29). "Pan's Labyrinth". Chicago Sun-Times. Retrieved 2007-01-25. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  19. ^ Anthony Lane, "The Current Cinema", The New Yorker, January 08, 2007
  20. ^ "IMDb Top 250" Retrieved on February 12 2007
  21. ^ "IMDb Top of 2000s" Retrieved on February 28 2007
  22. ^ Elliott, David (2007-01-11). "Artist in charge". The San Diego Union-Tribune. Retrieved 2007-01-25. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  23. ^ "National Society of Film Critics". IMDb. Retrieved 2007-05-23.
  24. ^ a b c "79th Annual Academy Awards Nominees and Winners". Academy Awards. Retrieved 2007-05-23.
  25. ^ "Latest winners & Nominees". British Academy of Film and Television Arts. Retrieved 2007-05-23.
  26. ^ David S. Cohen (2007-05-10). "'Superman' tops Saturns". Variety. Retrieved 2007-05-11. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  27. ^ "Spaceys 06; Space Choice". SpaceCast.
  28. ^ "Golden Globe Nominations and Winners". Hollywood Foreign Press Association. Retrieved 2007-05-23.
  29. ^ Del Toro message board Retrieved 2007-06-17
  30. ^ "Fear and Fantasy". American Cinematographer. Retrieved 2007-06-17.
  31. ^ a b "Del Toro crafts a harrowing fairy tale". Star Beacon. 2006-12-29. Retrieved 2007-03-28. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  32. ^ "Pan's Labyrinth Film Review - Time Out Film". Retrieved 2007-01-24.
  33. ^ "Bridge to Terabithia a Pan's Labyrinth for Kids". Retrieved 2007-02-23.
  34. ^ "Outside The Frame: Guillermo Del Toro Interview Part 1". ThePhoenix.com. 2007-01-11. Retrieved 2007-01-28.
  35. ^ a b "Pan's Labyrinth soundtrack overview". Allmusic.com. Retrieved 2007-02-04.
Template:S-awards
Preceded by Academy Award for Best Art Direction
Eugenio Caballero and Pilar Revuelta
2006 		Incumbent
Preceded by Academy Award for Best Cinematography
Guillermo Navarro
2006 		Incumbent
Preceded by Academy Award for Makeup
David Martí and Montse Ribé
2006 		Incumbent
Preceded by BAFTA Award for Best Film Not in the English Language
2006 		Incumbent
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