Pan's Labyrinth
High-energy warning, the whole story has two lines, a magic line is strange and magnificent, there are ancient legends, magical monsters, princesses are lost; a reality line is fierce and cruel, with hammer headshots, hacksaw legs, needle and thread stitches. A two-line narrative that caters to different audiences and creates different meanings in collisions.
Maybe you'll be indifferent, but more likely to see tears in your eyes.
The story takes place in 1944, just after the civil war in Spain, where a fascist regime has just been established, but previously defeated leftist revolutionaries are still fighting it in a guerrilla fashion.
The 12-year-old Ophelia and her pregnant mother went to the countryside, where there was a stationed fascist unit, commanded by Ophelia's stepfather, Captain Vader, and the father of the child in her mother's belly.
On the way, Ophelia stumbles upon a mysterious broken statue in the woods, she finds a fragment of her eye nearby and stitches it up, and then a stick-like elf crawls out of the statue's mouth and follows Ophelia all the way to her destination, Captain Vader's headquarters.
Arriving at the headquarters, the scene of meeting with her stepfather Vader is very awkward, Ophelia has some repulsion to everything in front of her, and is only interested in the matter of elves, she inadvertently walked into a ruins labyrinth, and when she wanted to continue exploring, Vader's servant Mercedes stopped the girl and told her not to continue to go inside, so as not to get lost. Compared with the officers around Vader, Mercedes was gentle and considerate, giving Ophelia a close relationship at the command.
Kovida's brutality and the pain of her mother's difficult childbirth made Ophelia feel depressed, and only fairy tales could escape the reality that her stepfather was a fascist officer.
Unexpectedly, one night, the elf came to find Ophelia again, and the girl was still afraid at first, but slowly found that the elf had no ill will towards her, and had become the appearance of a fairy tale book.
The elf led her again to the labyrinth next to the headquarters, where there was a sheep-like Favon. Faun was very excited when he saw Ophelia and said that he had been waiting for her here. Faun tells Ophelia that in her past life she was actually a princess of the Underground Kingdom, with a moon birthmark on her left shoulder, and when she ran to the ground and contracted a disease and died, the Underground King sent her to wait for the reincarnated princess to appear.
Is Ophelia really the princess of the Underground Kingdom? Not only girls are hard to believe. Faun, the god Pan, also needs to verify whether her essence has been destroyed by the mortal world. So Favon gave Ophelia a book of misguidedness, and she had to complete the three tasks in the book of misguided books before the night of the full moon to pass the verification.
Every girl has a princess dream. Not to mention that Ophelia, who loves fairy tales, has a moon mark on her left shoulder, which makes Ophelia believe even more that she is the princess of the underground kingdom in the mythological story.
So Ophelia completely disregarded her stepfather's battle with the Revolutionary Army in the woods and the dinner with her mother. Running alone into the woods began her fairytale journey.
Her first level is to find the toad under the fig tree, put the three magic stones that Fawon gave her into the toad's mouth, and take a golden key from its stomach. The clever Ophelia uses a beetle to deliver the magic stone into the toad's mouth, and the toad quickly vomits out a huge viscous object and dies with it, in which Ophelia gets the key.
Ophelia came out of the tree hole late in the morning, and when she returned home, she bumped into Mercedes, who was in contact with the guerrillas, and learned that Mercedes was undercover in the guerrillas, but she decided to keep it a secret.
Captain Vader's dinner party had begun, and Ophelia's mother was happy to tell the story of the captain, and although her first husband died in the war, she had now found a home for herself. Kovinda only treats her as a fertility machine. The mother saw that the feelings she had paid had become empty talk and returned disappointed.
Seeing ophelia's mother, who had missed the dinner party and was covered in mud, was full of blame, and she was in poor physical condition and almost miscarried, Captain Vader urged the doctor to treat her quickly and arranged for Ophelia to move elsewhere so as not to disturb her mother. Concerns about her mother left the girl with no intention of completing Pan's task.
Pan, who visited at night, saw this and gave Ophelia a root-like mandrake grass, as well as her own elves and various props to help her complete the next task. But Pan repeatedly warned Ophelia that nothing delicious could be eaten during the task. Ophelia put the mandela grass under her mother's bed, and her condition soon improved.
The second task then begins. Ophelia drew a door in magic chalk as instructed by the Book of Misguided, and after walking down the corridor to the end, she saw a table of delicious food and an eyeless monster sitting next to it.
Ophelia soon noticed that there were three keyholes in the wall, and the elf signaled the girl to use the golden key to open the middle lock, but Ophelia chose the left lock after hesitation, and the dagger GOT, her intuition was right.
While the Eyeless Monster was still asleep, the girls and elves quickly retreated. But the delicacy on the table made Ophelia forget Pan's advice, and she ate a grape with luck. The monster suddenly woke up and cut the eyes on the plate into the eye socket between his fingers, and the monster with the eyes regained its killing characteristics, and Ophelia cleverly drew a door on the ceiling, and finally escaped.
The second task was finally completed, and Ophelia was one step closer to her dream of princesshood. But Pan Shen knew about Ophelia's stealing, and angrily said to her: You have made a mistake, you can never become a princess again, you can only be a mortal for the rest of your life, and then you disappear into the darkness.
On the other side, Captain Vader launched a ferocious attack on the revolutionary army. A lot of information was pried out from the captives and the undercover doctor of the Revolutionary Army was killed.
Even Ophelia was unable to escape the captain's keen observation, and the mandala root hidden under her mother's bed was discovered. The mother was so disappointed that Ophelia, who escaped from reality and immersed herself in the myth of hypocrisy, threw the monster into the fire.
As a result, his physical condition took a sharp turn for the worse, and after giving birth to the child, he died.
Without her mother, Ophelia no longer had a reason to stay at the headquarters. Mercedes's undercover identity is also on the verge of being exposed under the pressure of the captain. The latter then planned to flee with the poor little child. As a result, the two men walked directly into the trap set by the captain.
Ophelia was taken back to headquarters and Mercedes was taken away and tortured.
Is there really no way to escape the clutches of the captain?
At this time, Pan Shen returned. He decided to give Ophelia another chance. He asked Ophelia to take her brother on the night of the full moon tonight to Pan's labyrinth.
At the warehouse, the interrogated Mercedes also untied the rope that bound his hands with a knife he carried with him, and stabbed Captain Vader with his unpreparedness.
The captain sent a force in pursuit, only to be nearly annihilated by the revolutionary army in the woods.
Most of the soldiers were broken, and the son was stolen by Ophelia, captain Vader, as if he had fallen from heaven to hell.
Now, he could not take care of the revolutionary army that had come up. It just wants to get his children back, because that's all his hard work.
The ruins opened a shortcut for the girl, and Pan Shen, standing at the end of the maze, was extremely excited. Because the gates are about to open, Ophelia is about to return to the Underworld Kingdom as a princess.
But to open the door, you need a drop of blood from a newborn baby. This is the final third task.
But Ophelia gave up. She was reluctant to leave her brother. Unwilling to hurt this child who is stranger to himself for the sake of kingship. Pan disappeared into the night, and the captain who caught up snatched the baby from the girl's hand and pulled the trigger at Ophelia.
Waiting for Captain Vader at the entrance of the labyrinth were the troops of the Revolutionary Army. Captain Vader knew he would not survive and handed the child to Mercedes. With a bullet in the face, Captain Vader ended his brutal career.
Mercedes walked into the maze with the child in her arms and found Ophelia lying on the ground. This cute girl who once lived with her and loved fairy tales should not have ended like this. Now the only thing she could do was hum another lullaby for her until she stopped breathing.
But Mercedes didn't know that Ophelia, who had dripped her own blood into the labyrinth, had returned to the underground kingdom.
Because using oneself, not the blood of innocent people, is the last and most important test.
The princess finally returns to the Underground Kingdom to be reunited with her family. And with a righteous and benevolent heart, he continued to rule the kingdom.
"Pan's Labyrinth" is the masterpiece of the industry's famous monster director Gilmour del Toro, and although his new work "The Shape of Water" won the 90th Academy Award for Best Picture, most fans still regard "Pan's Labyrinth" and "Pacific Rim" as the best director.
Most of the works of magic realism have strange, mysterious and grotesque colors. Magic itself is very attractive, but as a means of expression, it is still a reflection of a certain reality.
Children are supposed to be innocent and carefree, but in a given historical context, children may bleed prematurely for some kind of wish.
There are many interesting political metaphors in the film, and the director repeatedly emphasizes Ophelia's left revolutionary position by placing the left eye on the sculpture, shaking hands with the right-wing fascist commander with his left hand, and opening the door on the left with a key. So Ophelia is a leftist revolutionary in the Old World, the representative of the Old World is Captain Vader, and the baby is the New World. The revolutionary forces cut off his connection with his father, the old and new world, with a single shot after receiving the baby, which coincided with the story of the former King Juan of Spain and the dictator's father Franco, who brought Spain into a new society.
The audience is still having a heated discussion about the ending. Some people think that the underground labyrinth is real because there is some logic to be found. Others think that everything is just a fantasy that Ophelia used to escape the tragic and lonely reality during the post-war depression years.
What would your answer be?