I’ve been meaning to blog about Pan’s Labyrinth for a while now. I first saw it back in January when Kara was in town. I was expecting it to be great, I’d heard so much good stuff about it before going, and I wasn’t disappointed. Pan’s Labyrinth was everything that The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe wasn’t… frighteningly dark, sinister, subtler in its allegory and definitely not for kids. Pan’s Labyrinth is brutally violent early on in order to convince us of the ruthlessness of the antagonist. Later in the film more scenes could have shown even more violence but mercifully don’t.

For those of you who were confused like me, Pan is the name of a Faun. Not this particular faun, but a faun. In Spain where the film was made it was named Faun’s Labyrinth. Okay, now that aside… Pan’s Labyrinth begins with an “incarnation” of sorts. The king of the underworld’s daughter escapes to go live among us land-dwelling people, but as a consequence she dies a mortal’s death like us. But the King waits for her soul to return one day in another body. The rest of the story takes place in WWII Spain where fascists are fighting off guerrillas in the forest. Ofelia, a young girl is the stepdaughter of a fascist general (Yet another movie about children living in a broken world). She encounters a faun at the bottom of a spiral staircase in the center of a giant labyrinth behind the fascist stronghold.

The faun gives Ofelia several tasks to complete before the moon is full. The first, Rusty pointed out (perhaps soon in blog form), could be an allegory of capitalism. The second is retrieving something from behind a tiny door with a key from her first mission. She retrieves a knife from the door and gets into some trouble on the way back. The last mission requires that she get her newborn baby brother and meet the faun at the labyrinth. When shes does so he tells her that the knife is to draw blood from her brother. Well if the faun wasn’t sketchy enough the entire film now it’s obvious… he, like almost everyone else in Ofelia’s life is rotten. She refuses and just as she does her fascist stepfather stumbles upon her, snatches his son back and promptly kills Ofelia. She lies at the mouth of the staircase in the center of the labyrinth, blood running out of her nose. This is the scene that opened the film. Just as it seems like this movie is going to end one long train wreck of violence and cruelty Ofelia opens her eyes in paradise. Her father, the king of the underworld welcomes her home and the faun tells her that she passed the final test. She chose to shed her own blood rather than that of an innocent.

Obvious Christ-figure metaphor aside, what I find even more fascinating is Ofelia’s resurrection and how it completely (re)narrates the tone of the film. What was once macabre is now a celebration. What was once a tragedy is now a comedy (in the Greek sense). Her resurrection bears witness to a deeper reality. Her fascist stepfather has no real power, his violence is in vain a mere illusion of power.