With Guillermo Del Toro’s highly anticipated Frankenstein coming out this year, I decided to look back on one of his most famous movies.  Pan’s Labyrinth (2006) became an iconic movie as soon as it’s release and continues to hold relevance in the film world, and, in spite of its fantastical characters, real life. 

Pan’s Labyrinth, or El Laberinto del fauno, is a fantasy war movie that was nominated for 6 Oscars, winning three of them: Best Art Direction, Best Cinematography, and Best Makeup. 

The film is centered around a little girl, Ofelia, in 1944, after the Civil War in Spain. The story takes place when she and her pregnant mother move in with her mother’s new husband and her new stepfather, Captain Vidal, who is a Civil Guard Officer. 

Together they all live on the military base in the woods to take down the rebel soldiers that inhabit them, which also seems to be home to some magical beings that call out to Ofelia. 

She meets a faun, who tells her the story of a king whose daughter was lost, and how he awaits her return, but also how this princess is Ofelia. The movie follows her story of her trying to pass three tasks in order to prove her identity as the princess. 

This movie explores themes of escapism, more specifically through storytelling and magic, during painful situations, like the war and the abuse of Ofelia’s ruthless stepfather. It also sends a political message to fight against facism and oppression, with characters like the servant, Mercedes, and Doctor Ferriero who are spies for the rebel soldiers. Vidal is the epitome of what people hated during Francisco Franco’s rule over Spain, with his violent, controlling, and remorseless character. From his killing of innocent civilians to his torturing of rebel soldiers, I did not anticipate this level of horrific leadership in a fantasy movie. 

On the surface, this movie seems to just be about a little girl working with mythical creatures to prove her identity as a princess, all while there are real world events and horrific actions being committed all around her. Del Toro was able to depict vicious actions of a violent captain and images of people being tortured and on the verge of death with it almost being hard to believe that it’s fake while showing hyper realistic creatures like the faun, fairies, giant toad, and most famously, the pale man. Pulling off a balance between fantasy and realism is not easy, and this movie was able to pull these aspects in a way that didn’t feel disjointed.   

Despite the fact that most people are not exactly working with magical beings and discovering they are royalty, everyone can relate to having used some sort of escapism when going through  something traumatic or a difficult time. Ofelia not only struggles with the loss of her biological father, but also the loss of her home and mother after moving. It’s only natural for people to cope with these kinds of events by distracting themselves to avoid dealing with difficult feelings. Today, many people do this by distracting themselves by allowing their time to be consumed with other people, and most commonly, consuming a ridiculous amount of media, whether it be movies, books, or social media.

While this movie was made in 2006, it still feels very relevant to many of the current issues in the world today. Despite the fact that the world is very different from fascist Spain, there is still so much fear, chaos, and uncertainty in the future of different countries and the choices of their governments. 

Without spoiling the ending of the film, the final moments were definitely a shock and disappointing to some viewers, but it did make the overall themes of the movie feel more realistic. In deciding to kill some of the most important characters in the last few minutes of the film, he represented the difficult truth that not everyone gets the ending that they deserve. In a way, one of the deaths that he chooses to execute was almost a direct representation of the death of innocence as a result of war and violence.

I believe that this movie deserved all of the love and praise that it received. Despite the fact that this movie was made 18 years ago, the themes and messages are still important today. For anyone that is interested in history, fantasy or action, I would definitely recommend this movie.