Pan's Labyrinth is one of the greatest fantasy films. The world of elves and fantasies in the film can only be seen by the 11-year-old heroine, but that doesn't mean she's just dreaming. The coexistence of these two worlds is one of the most terrifying elements of the film. Ophelia (Ivana Bacro) travels through two worlds in Pan's Labyrinth, one is the real world and the other is the world she imagined.
Pan's Labyrinth took shape in the imagination of director Gilmour del Toro as early as 1993, when he sketched his ideas in a notebook he carried with him. The Mexican director reacted so strongly to the horror lurking beneath the surface of classic fairy tales that he was not interested in making a children's film, but rather a film that looked directly at horror. He discarded all stereotypes about cinematic fantasy creatures and, along with his Oscar-winning cinematographer, art director and makeup artist, created the favon, the frog and the dreaded grey skeleton.
Fast forward to Spain in 1944, and the news of the Normandy landings and the setbacks suffered by Franco's friend Hitler and Mussolini inspired the anti-Franco fighters. They hid in the forest, and a squad of Franco's soldiers was sent to a remote area to hunt down the rebels. The procession is led by Vader (Serge Lopez), a sadist disguised as a soldier. He used a shady old factory as his headquarters, and he and his pregnant wife, Carmen, moved in with her and her ex-husband's daughter, Ophelia. Ophelia hated her stepfather, who simply used Carmen as a tool for procreation. Shortly after arriving, Vader shot two farmers with guns, who claimed their rifles were only used to hunt rabbits. Afterwards Vidal found the rabbit in their bag. He told his subordinates to search for these bastards before wasting their time next time. He then ordered his chief servant, Mercedes, to cook the rabbits for dinner.
Ophelia encounters a strange insect that looks like a praying mantis. The insect was friendly and persistent, like a fairy to her, and when she said so, the bug turned into a little person and led her into a labyrinth, thus giving her her first meeting with Faun. The elf looks like good and not evil, but what he actually offers is not good or evil, but a choice between them. Director Gilmour del Toro said in the commentary that Ophelia is a girl who needs to go against anything but her own soul. He said the whole movie is about choice.
The dwarf helped Ophelia well with her worries about her pregnant mother, and he gave her a mandela grass root to hide under her mother's bed and feed her with two drops of blood a day. Ophelia discovers that Mercedes is helping the rebels, but she keeps it a secret because she doesn't want to hurt anyone.
The visuals of Pan's Labyrinth are very good. The creatures in the movie look like they've come out of a nightmare, especially the gray skeleton. His eyes were actually on the palm of his hand. When the giant frog delivers a key key from its stomach, it is achieved by regurgitating the entire body, leaving an empty frog skin.
Gilmo del Toro likes to switch between many scenes with a moving foreground. A dark area, or a wall or a tree. This transition makes one think that the two worlds are not separated from each other. He shows the interior of most of the factory with icy blue-gray slate, but adds warm tones to the faces and fantasy worlds of the characters we like.
Gilmour del Toro (b. 1964) is one of the most challenging directors in fantasy cinema. He's a visually oriented director, and when he says that movies are made up of expressions, I think he's referring not just to the actor's gaze, but to his own gaze.
Born in Mexico, he has worked both locally and overseas, like his gifted friends and contemporaries Alfonso Caron (b. 1961) and Alejandro González-Iñárritu (b. 1963). They weren't always filmed in Mexico, but were always infected by the imagination and spirit of the country. Pan's Labyrinth is so successful because it puts together two distinctly incompatible worlds until the end. Because there is no compromise, there is no way to escape. And the dangers of each world always exist in another.