THE SHAPES AND COLORS ARE THEMATICALLY RELEVANT.ĭel Toro points out in the DVD commentary that scenes with Ofelia tend to have circles and curves and use warm colors, while scenes with Vidal and the war have more straight lines and use cold colors. ![]() In del Toro's first conception of the story, it was about a married pregnant woman who meets the Faun in the labyrinth, falls in love with him, and lets him sacrifice her baby on faith that she, the baby, and the Faun will all be together in the afterlife and the labyrinth will thrive again. that it's real." Specifically: the flower blooming on the dead tree at the end the chalk ending up on Vidal's desk (as there's no way it could have gotten there) and Ofelia's escape through a dead end of the labyrinth. THERE'S A CORRECT ANSWER TO THE QUESTION OF WHETHER IT'S REAL OR ALL IN OFELIA'S HEAD.ĭel Toro has reiterated many times that while a story can mean different things to different people, "objectively, the way I structured it, there are clues that tell you. "He represents fascism and the church eating the children when they have a perversely abundant banquet in front of them." 8. Furthermore, "the Pale Man represents the church for me," Del Toro said. He said the priest's comment at the banquet table, regarding the dead rebels-"God has already saved their souls what happens to their bodies, well, it hardly matters to him"-was taken from a real speech that a priest used to give to rebel prisoners in the fascist camps. IT REFLECTS DEL TORO'S NEGATIVE FEELINGS TOWARD THE CATHOLIC CHURCH.ĭel Toro told an interviewer that he was appalled by the Catholic church's complicity with fascism during the Spanish Civil War. "It was the best thing that ever happened to me in my life," del Toro said. IT MADE STEPHEN KING SQUIRM.ĭel Toro reports that he had the pleasure of sitting next to the esteemed horror novelist at a screening in New England, and that King squirmed mightily during the Pale Man scene. It's a subtle reinforcement of the idea that the fantasy world is bleeding into the real one. If you look closely at the banister in the Captain's mansion, you'll see the Faun's head in the design. THE FAUN'S IMAGE IS INCORPORATED INTO THE ARCHITECTURE. "I never liked horses," he says, "but after this, I hate them." 5. His antipathy toward our equine friends predated Pan's Labyrinth, but the particular horses he worked with here-ill-tempered and difficult, apparently-intensified those feelings. "They are absolutely nasty motherf*ckers," he says on the DVD commentary. The director is fond of all manner of strange, terrifying monsters, but real live horses? He hates 'em. Those elements were added digitally in post-production. In fact del Toro said that, except for the exploding truck in another scene, the film uses almost no real flames, sparks, or fires. For the shootout in the forest about 70 minutes into the movie, they put fake moss on everything to hide the brownness, and didn't use squibs (explosive blood packs) or gunfire because of the increased fire risk. ![]() The region of Segovia, Spain was experiencing its worst drought in 30 years when del Toro filmed his movie there, so his team had to get creative. DUE TO A DROUGHT, THERE ARE VERY FEW ACTUAL FLAMES OR SPARKS IN THE MOVIE. Davey's stepfather turns out to be a cruel man, too, just like Captain Vidal (Sergi López). When Ofelia (Ivana Baquero) arrives at Captain Vidal's house, goes to shake his hand, and is gruffly told, "It's the other hand," that's a near-quotation from Charles Dickens' David Copperfield, when the young lad of the title meets his mother's soon-to-be-husband. "Everything I had to say about brutality and innocence changed." 2. ![]() The movies have a lot of similarities in their structure and setup, but del Toro says on the Pan's Labyrinth DVD commentary that the events of September 11, 2001-which occurred five months after The Devil's Backbone opened in Spain, and two months before it opened in the U.S.-changed his perspective. IT'S A COMPANION PIECE TO THE DEVIL'S BACKBONE.ĭel Toro intended Pan's Labyrinth to be a thematic complement to The Devil's Backbone, his 2001 film set in Spain in 1939. Here are some details to help you separate fantasy from reality the next time you take a walk in El Laberinto del Fauno. The heady mix of whimsy and violence wasn't everyone's cup of tea, but it won enough fans to make $83.25 million worldwide and receive six Oscar nominations (it won three). Like many of del Toro's films, it's a political allegory as well as a gothic fantasy. Between his modest comic book hits Hellboy and Hellboy II: The Golden Army, imaginative Mexican filmmaker Guillermo del Toro made a film that was darker and more in Spanish: Pan's Labyrinth, a horror-tinged fairy tale set in 1944 Spain, under fascist rule.
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