Fairy tales trump fascism in Labyrinth

Pan’s Labyrinth accomplishes the seemingly paradoxical feat of making a fantastical world darkly realistic. The story of a young girl escaping into a twisted fairytale land from 1944 fascist Spain is thoroughly engrossing, despite the frequent injection of grisly images.

The Spanish language film opens with the story of Moanna, Princess of the Netherworld, who longed to gain entrance to the mortal realm. When Moanna is finally able to flee her father’s kingdom, she is blinded by the sun, obliterating her memory.

The bright flash of light that blinds Moanna offers a nice transition to the story of Ofelia (Fragiles’s Ivana Baquero), the movie’s central character. Ofelia is obsessed with fairy tales and fanciful creatures. Her widowed mother remarried a Spanish military captain, forcing Ofelia to live with the ruthless Captain Vidal (Peindre ou Faire l’Amour’s Sergi Lopez) and accept him as her new father, but she takes refuge in her imagination.

The dark fantasy world Ofelia creates complements her fascist Spanish reality. Dismal events in her own life are reimagined to give Ofelia a sense of control over the uncontrollable. Rather than take an extreme departure from her reality, Ofelia incorporates her real world into her fantasy.

She discovers a spiral staircase within the labyrinth outside Vidal’s home. Spurred by curiosity, she descends the stairway and meets Pan (Hellboy’s Doug Jones), a satyr and messenger of the Netherworld. The sinister-looking Pan tells Ofelia that she is the reincarnation of Princess Moanna and offers to help her gain admittance to the hellish realm.

To enter to the Netherworld, Ofelia must complete three tasks in the mortal world before the full moon. The tasks are revealed as the movie progresses, and each one takes Ofelia further from Vidal’s good graces.

Not that Vidal has good graces.

Throughout the film, the audience is shown Vidal’s utter lack of humanity. He uses the heel of a glass bottle as a face-bashing tool when a rabbit-hunting father and son make the innocent mistake of trespassing on his land. He tortures a prisoner to the point of assisted suicide, and he shows no concern for the well-being of Ofelia or her pregnant mother.

The only things Vidal cares about are producing an heir to carry on his family name and meticulously maintaining his pocket watch. Both become integral to the film’s compelling finale.

The look and feel of the movie add to its chilling ambience. Blue tones and dark colors make Ofelia’s world a cold one. The gritty texture of the film’s negatives makes the story seem more authentic, and the camera’s unflinching viewpoint enhances the film’s honesty. Pan’s Labyrinth is not afraid to show extreme violence. Even when faced with unbearably grotesque images, the camera’s eye does not look away.

The events — including the gruesome ones — that take place in Ofelia’s reality are plausible in the historical setting. The merciless Vidal is plagued by freedom fighters trying to implement changes to the fascist system. Their goal is to make life as difficult as possible for the heartless Vidal, and the audience cheers them on in their endeavor. Vidal, as the personification of evil, makes his fascist Spain the ultimate Hell.

In fact, many parallels exist between the dark, ominous atmosphere of Pan’s Netherworld and Dante’s mythological Hell. Ofelia’s descent down the spiral staircase to a kingdom far below the earth reeks of Hellish imagery. With his demand for unquestioning obedience, Vidal as a contemporary Satan becomes a foil to Pan, who rules the Netherworld of Ofelia’s imagination. Vidal’s sinful pride and the circular tiers of Pan’s Netherworld are reminiscent of Dante’s Inferno.

The creation of a supremely Hellish world could not have been accomplished without the acting skills of Lopez and Jones. Lopez’s Vidal manages to invoke absolute hatred from his viewers by refusing to display a single redeeming quality. And Jones as Pan is enigmatic enough to keep the audience guessing about his intentions until the very end.

As both director and screenwriter, Guillermo del Toro (Hellboy) expertly weaves together Ofelia’s imagination and her reality. The seamlessness of their juxtaposition makes it hard to determine where one world ends and the other begins. Del Toro executes the ending with such expertise that viewers leave satisfied that all their questions have been answered, and his incorporation of images and events from earlier in the story assures the viewers that they invested their leisure time well.

Del Toro’s orchestration of the story’s structure makes Pan’s Labyrinth thoroughly engrossing and rewarding for the viewer. Superlative acting, never-a-dull-moment pacing and a gratifying ending show that America is not the only market that can produce stellar film fare.