El Laberinto del Fauno

From Feminist SF Wiki
Jump to navigation Jump to search

El Laberinto del Fauno ("Pan's Labyrinth", in English), is a 2006 film by Guillermo del Toro.



Spoiler warning: This page and any other dealing with the content of works may have plot and/or ending details revealed.





Although, since the film is told as a flashback, a "spoiler" warning is sort of superfluous.



Plot & characters

The film is simultaneously a fairy tale--gory and graphic like classic fairy tales--and an allegory for the horrors of war and fascism, and the death of democracy.

  • The central character is a child, Ofelia; she is brave, loving, and humanly childlike in her occasional thoughtlessness.
  • Ofelia is cared for by her ailing mother, Carmen; Carmen loves her daughter but is rarely an effective character; rather, she is a woman apparently trapped by circumstances, who appears to have made at least one serious miscalculation.
  • Ofelia is also cared for by a secret revolutionary, Mercedes. Mercedes is an active agent in the "real world" of post-Civil War Spain (1944), occupying a dangerous position in the household of Captain Vidal, an officer in Franco's fascist army.
  • Captain Vidal is the domestic evil, whose horror becomes increasingly apparent throughout the movie. A fascist in the fullest sense of the word, he adheres to fascist elitism, a foolish sexism, and a callous disregard for the life of others.
  • A fairy (both in insect and more traditional "fairy woman" form and a faun connect Ofelia to the fantasy world; both are mysterious and potentially frightening characters, who may mean her good or ill; however, the fairy assumes a clearly positive and protective role over the course of the film. The faun remains more ambiguous and mysterious, but any danger or mystery it (he?) poses pales in comparison to the cold Captain Vidal.

Gender issues

The central characters are Ofelia, Mercedes, and Captain Vidal. The female characters live and are shown primarily in the fascist world dominated by Captain Vidal, a world of sexism, violence, and hierarchy. Both Ofelia and Mercedes are courageous, braving dangers both fantastic and real, to make the world a better place. None of the characterizations are hampered by stereotyped behaviors that suggest innate qualities of "femininity" or "masculinity"; rather, characters are people, better or less realized as individuals; and with flaws that reflect their individual personalities and choices in life.

Ofelia dies in the real world, after attempting to kill Vidal and rescue her infant brother -- her last tie to her beloved mother, and her hope to redeem herself to the Faun. Although Vidal kills her and takes the baby, his triumph is short-lived; Mercedes and the townspeople and remaining anarchists and Republicans find him, and take his baby. Mercedes articulates fully his loss, and cuts short Vidal's last attempt to control the world even after his death. He says, "Tell my son the time I died," hoping to pass along a patriarchal, war-glorying ethos; Mercedes refutes him. "No," she says. "He will not even know your name." His look of shock and dismay reveal that he believed he deserved to be treated as "honorable", above these peasants, and able to control events beyond his death; he had thought that, just as he himself feels he followed in his father's militaristic footsteps, that his son, too, would do so. Mercedes hits him where it really hurts: Being killed by peasants, he would find to be in the tradition of glorious war; but being denied the patriarchal remembrance and honor of his son is truly a triumph of the people over him and his ideology.

Simplistically, Ofelia's death could be seen as a female sacrifice for a male child -- a tiresomely common theme. However, in combination with Mercedes' triumph, and the active struggles of both Ofelia and Mercedes against Vidal and their circumstances, Ofelia's death is perhaps better seen as a part of their triumph over the forces of fascism and patriarchy. Not only did Ofelia refuse to unquestioningly obey an older male (both the Faun and Vidal), but her refusal led to her own redemption and reward in the fantastic world. In the real world, together, Ofelia and Mercedes conquered Vidal, ending his life and his tyranny over the countryside, as well as his prospective tyranny and ruination of Ofelia's brother's life. More importantly, through their actions, Mercedes and Ofelia transformed Vidal's "don't fuck with me; this is my son; my name; my honor" vision of patriarchal and militaristic power, into a redemption and liberation of a child from that continuing horror.

Official site, filmmaker, etc.

Discussions elsewhere

Retrieved from "https://wiki.feministsf.net/index.php?title=El_Laberinto_del_Fauno&oldid=32445"