Original poster for Pan’s Labyrinth
Jesse Pasternack explains how Pan’s Labyrinth develops one of filmmaker Guillermo Del Toro’s most frequent themes.
There are some films which wash away the years when you revisit them. Every time I return to Pan’s Labyrinth (2006), writer-director Guillermo Del Toro’s midcareer masterpiece, I feel like I’m sixteen again. That’s how old I was when I first saw it in a high school Spanish class. At the time, I was blown away by its mixture of fantastical production design and sense of real danger. But, even though I retain the sense of childlike wonder I felt when I first saw it, I now view this film mostly through the lens of one of Del Toro’s favorite themes: disobedience.
It’s a word that, for many, has negative connotations. For centuries, parents have taught their children to obey them. It’s a quality which they try to drum into them through cultural products like nursery rhymes or even brute force. But obedience for its own sake, to follow someone even if they are ordering you to inflict horrors against other people, is not something to which people should aspire. To disobey is also to question, to think for yourself, and resist getting embroiled in atrocities. It is, in a way, a key value of a democratic society, and Del Toro’s understanding of its positive potential is important to understanding this anti-fascist fairy tale.
Pan’s Labyrinth takes place in 1944 Spain, during the Franco regime. Good-hearted young girl Ofelia (Ivana Baquero) goes into the countryside with her mother Carmen (Ariadna Gil) to live with her new stepfather, the brutal Captain Vidal (Sergi López). Once there, Ofelia meets The Faun (Doug Jones, a longtime Del Toro collaborator), who tells her that she is the reincarnation of an ancient princess. She begins to follow tasks The Faun gives her to become a princess again as Captain Vidal’s violent machinations threaten her quest.
Ivana Baquero as Ofelia
After a brief prologue, Del Toro expertly establishes Ofelia as a protagonist whose key trait is disobedience. An early moment of her refusing to greet Captain Vidal, despite her mother’s command to treat him well, demonstrates that she is willing to not follow orders if they go against her beliefs. Her conscience compels her to embrace that value even as many of the adults around her preach compliance to the rules of the authoritarian society in which they live.
The chief foil to Ofelia, a young girl given to disobedience, is Captain Vidal, a grown man whose whole life has been defined by obedience. He is someone who has devoted every moment to living up to his interpretation of his late father’s legacy as an “excellent soldier.” But for Captain Vidal, that means unquestioning devotion to the fascist regime he serves. He also requires it from those he encounters, going so far as to murder those who do not do as he says. If Ofelia’s status as a kindly protagonist rests in her willingness to disobey, then Captain Vidal’s status as a villainous antagonist rests in his willingness to “obey without question,” as the resistance-minded Doctor Ferreiro (Álex Angulo) terms it.
Sergi López as Captain Vidal
The main paradox at the heart of this film lies in the role disobedience plays in Ofelia’s quest. For most of the film she has been following The Faun’s commands in order to regain her lost status as a princess. This goes against her nature and her instincts even impede her goals, such as when it leads her to face off against the Pale Man (Jones in a second and unforgettable role). But it is telling that the climax involves a crucial decision made by Ofelia, and that it is for her to refuse to commit an act of violence against someone who does not deserve it. That final choice, and the ramifications from it, are the most telling illustration of Del Toro’s view of disobedience as a “virtue,” as he described it in an interview with Big Issue to promote his version of Pinocchio (2022).
That ending is one I’ve been debating with people since I first saw it. A lot of people, most of them teachers who were older than me, told me that it proves Ofelia is imagining the fantastical elements of the film. But I continue to think that, somehow, the fantasy world she discovers is just as real as the one she initially inhabits. It’s something I can’t really explain, but sometimes I don’t really have to describe why. That’s because if there’s one thing Del Toro has ever taught me, it’s that it is healthy to disagree, which, in its own way, is a form of disobedience.
Pan’s Labyrinth will be screened at IU Cinema on November 20 as part of the Control/Revolt series.