Please note: This discussion (not quite a review) contains spoilers for the movie, Pan’s Labyrinth (El Laberinto del fauno (Espanol)).
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I was able to watch this movie over this past weekend. Upon the conclusion of this movie, I went digging to see what conclusions other viewers may have for this movie. From what I have seen, the vast majority of viewers hold a conclusion that contradict with what I have seen.
This México movie, based during Franco’s mopping up exercise after the Civil War in España (Spain) is sometimes called a fairy tale for grow-ups. Those who claims as such failed to realize that the original Nursery Rhymes are quite devoid of “Happily Ever After” type of ending — preferring to dive into a moralistic tale full of consequences. This movie is so powerful in its story-telling that it moved Björk, a well known musician, to write a song, Pneumonia. It is clear that Björk came to the same conclusion as I did.
You see, Americans are too used to a “Happily Ever After” type of films. Even the American’s version of Fairy Tales Storyteller, M. Night Shyamalan, fall victim to the need to have such type of movies especially with ‘Signs’. To confront such a depressing film without this said “Happily Ever After” conclusion, audiences across this country seemly grasped to Ofelia’s “heroic return to her parents” fantasy as reality.
But the true conclusion is much more horrific. She died dreaming of happiness in the middle of a brutal world in where she lost both of her parents. The brutality of the world is shown in stark reality.
An overzealous captain and step-father, Vidal, is seen as abusive toward his staff, and destroying his enemies whenever he could. Torture and mutilation are common tactics in interrogation. Instead of accepting a mistaken identity, he berated the guards for not investigating more closely before bringing the accusations to him for his own brand of summary justice. Wounded enemies are shot at point-blank if they could not or would not share their information.
Ofelia (or perhaps Ophelia — a famous character in Shakesphere’s Hamlet with the same type of struggles) lost her father, a tailor, during the Civil War, and is confronted with a very pregnant and very ill mother. Both were transported to be with Videl, who demands that a son be born near his father, despite the dangerous terrain due to resisting rebels.
The death of Ofelia’s mother, the battle, and the destruction of the home base of Videl, and more weaves a cruel world where Ofelia is living. Add to this a voracious desire for books of a fantasy nature — and a story is spun.
The movie opens with a narration and ends with narration. The story claims of a girl, a princess who ran out to seek what it is like above ground, and was blinded by the light to the point of losing her memory, and dying. The father longs and expects her soul to return in a different body. Then you see that it was a story being read by Ofelia. The seed was fed of an attractive alternative universe, where her father (who have long passed) is waiting somewhere for her to return — a real father, not that evil step-father she is confronted with.
At the ending, as Ofelia lay dying due to a gunshot wound inflicted by her step-father, she fantasized of returning home as a princess, not only to her real father, the King, but also her real mother, the Queen, seen only under heavy garb and makeup. They all congratulated her for succeeding with her three tasks. But as you see, her real self is there, dead albeit with a smile.
Everything she went through was either a complete fabrication of her own imagination, or an extension of such. She was warned many times to end the fantasy and to enter the real world by many people, especially Mercedes — an incredibly strong woman, and friend to Ofelia along with being a spy for the rebels. She failed to seperate the reality with the fantasy that was born out of the loss of her father and the marriage by her mother with Captain Vidal, fed to her by fairy tales books.
There were a few oppositions to this conclusion with a few evidences provided. What of the mandrake who were “clearly alive” and the fact that her mother appeared to be better? Very simple: The mandrake was only alive in Ofelia’s eyes. The stress of discovery of the root drove a healing mother to death due to excessive exertion, which is something that was repetitively warned of by the doctor. It was even at a point where Ofelia was banished from her mother’s side as Ofelia’s antics harmed her mother’s health.
I can not yet explain the chalk wall, other to say that her escape from the room was NOT through the chalk door. If one would pay close attention to the chalk left on the table for Captain Vidal to discover, it was clearly unused. Somehow she was able to sneak out of a guarded room (although the guards were nowhere to be found, perhaps deciding to go out and clean up the aftermath of an attack on the base.)
She died with a dream. However, the question is whether it is better to be Ofelia or to be Mercedes? One who sticks to a fantasy and die due to this — or one who gave up the fantasies, and yet is confronted with a cruel world where she constantly fight to stay ahead?
This is a fabulous movie, one of the best I have ever seen.
