Pan’s Labyrinth (El Laberinto del Fauno)

Director: Guillermo del Toro

Screenplay: Guillermo del Toro

Stars: Ariadna Gil (Carmen Vidal), Ivana Baquero (Ofelia), Sergi López (Capitán Vidal), Maribel Verdú (Mercedes), Doug Jones (Pan / Pale Man), Álex Angulo (Dr. Ferreiro), Manolo Solo (Garcés), César Vea (Serrano), Roger Casamajor (Pedro)

MPAA Rating: R

Year of Release: 2006

Country: Mexico / Spain / U.S.

Pan’s Labyrinth Criterion Collection Blu-ray

Pan’s Labyrinth (El Laberinto del Fauno), a masterpiece of fantasia by Mexican director Guillermo del Toro, is at turns exquisitely beautiful, horrifying, and heart-wrenchingly sweet. Del Toro’s ability to balance all these conflicting tones in a film of such ambitious sweep and bold daring is testament to not only his unique artistry, but also his humanity. As a filmmaker who has worked exclusively in the genres of fantasy, science fiction, and horror (his first film was 1992’s Cronos, a modern-day vampire story, and his most recent film was 2015’s Crimson Peak, a grandiose Gothic romance), del Toro has carved out a space in which the fantastical and the ordinary can not only interact, but ravenously feed off each other.

Pan’s Labyrinth, which del Toro both wrote and directed, takes place in Spain in 1944, just after a bloody civil war that resulted in the fascist dictator General Franco ruling the country. The film’s heroine is a wide-eyed 12-year-old girl named Ofelia (Ivana Baquero), who reads fairy tales as a way of escaping from the difficulties of life. Her mother, Carmen (Ariadna Gil), has recently remarried and is eight months pregnant. This means that Ofelia’s new stepfather is Captain Vidal (Sergi López), a brutal, sadistic officer in Franco’s army who has been taxed with the job of finishing off the remaining resistance fighters who are hiding among the trees in the Spanish countryside. Captain Vidal demands that Carmen and Ofelia join him at a remote military outpost in the woods so he can be present when his son is born (he is obsessed with his lineage and is insistently confident that the baby will be a boy, and Ofelia’s assertion that her mother is “Sick with baby” suggests that carrying his heir is literally killing her).

Near the house occupied by Captain Vidal and his men are the ruins of an ancient labyrinth. Ofelia is told not to go near them, but one night she is beckoned there by a large insect that turns out to be a fairy. In the labyrinth, she meets an enormous faun (Doug Jones), who at first appears to be menacing (his spiraling, goat-like horns, milky-blank eyes, and towering gait give him the appearance of something demonic), but is actually a kindly emissary of the underworld. The underworld’s threatening-sounding title hides the fact that it is, if anything, an ode to a richer, more beautiful, and more peaceful past—precisely what is obliterated by ideologies like fascism. The faun believes that Ofelia is the reincarnation of an underworld princess who had been lost among the mortals, and she must pass three tests in order to reclaim her rightful place in the kingdom.

Del Toro deftly cuts back and forth between the worlds of fantasy and reality, finding striking parallels between them. Both worlds are fraught with violence and terror, but also strange beauty and the constant hope of redemption. By setting the film at the end of the Spanish Civil War, del Toro is able to use the fairy tale aspects of the story to reflect back on Spain’s recent past, not to mention the brutality of human nature. The metaphorical match between the fairy world and Spain succumbing to fascism is not perfect, nor need it be; it is much more about the conjuring of mood and tone, which del Toro does with feverish intensity (he achieved something similar in his 2001 film The Devil’s Backbone, a ghost story set during the Spanish Civil War).

While del Toro conjures up some frightening images, including an enormous toad that regurgitates its own insides and a pale, gangly, child-eating monstrosity whose eyes are located in its palms, no creature of his feverish imagination compares with the sadistic brutality of Captain Vidal. Vidal is fascism embodied: completely self-centered, cruel, and unrelenting, he is an ogre of enormous, frightening proportions. He inflicts pain on others with sociopathic glee, and he seems completely removed from any identifiable politics other than his own sadistic pleasure.

In this way, del Toro blurs the lines between fantasy and reality, suggesting that the abject evil of fairy tales (usually embodied in some kind of wicked step-something, whether it be a mother, sister, or father) is merely a reflection of the world’s cruelties. Like conventional fairy tales, Pan’s Labyrinth offers a path to overcoming such cruelty, even if victory quite possibly resides in the realm of the imaginary.

Pan’s Labyrinth Criterion Collection Director-Approved Blu-ray

Aspect Ratio	1.85:1
Audio	Spanish DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1 surround Spanish DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround
Subtitles	English
Supplements	Audio commentary by director Guillermo del Toro from 2007 Director’s introduction Video interview with del Toro by novelist Cornelia Funke Video interview with actor Doug Jones “The Power of Myth” featurette “Pan and the Fairies” featurette “The Color and the Shape” featurette “The Melody Echoes the Fairy Tale” featurette Interactive director’s notebook Footage of actor Ivana Baquero’s audition for the film Animated comics featuring prequel stories for the film’s menagerie of creatures Programs comparing selected production storyboards and del Toro’s thumbnail sketches with the final film; visual effects work for the Green Fairy; and elements of the film’s score Trailers and TV spots Essay by film critic Michael Atkinson
Distributor	The Criterion Collection
SRP	$39.95
Release Date	October 17, 2016

VIDEO & AUDIO
Like all of Guillermo del Toro’s films, Pan’s Labyrinth is a beautifully shot visual marvel. According to the liner notes, the presentation on Criterion’s Blu-ray was taken from the 2K digital intermediate that was made from the original 35mm camera negative when the film was being prepared for theatrical release. Criterion’s version is described as being “newly graded,” which means that additional color work was done for this release; thus, it will different in some respects from both the original theatrical presentation and the previous DVD release, although this is apparently in keeping with del Toro’s original vision. The resulting image is simply fantastic and beautiful to behold. The image is rich with detail and contrast, and black levels, shadow detail, and contrast benefit quite substantially from the high-definition presentation. The film has two very distinct color palettes—cold, steely blues, browns, and grays for most of the scenes taking place in the “real world” and warm, intense reds and golds for the “fantasy world”—both of which are presented with intense saturation and fidelity. Criterion’s disc also offers the option of either a 5.1-channel or a 7.1-channel DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack, the latter of which was newly created for this release from the original digital audio master files. Both soundtracks are first-rate, with excellent depth, clarity, and directional effects. It is a deeply immersive soundtrack, as del Toro clearly spent as much energy on the layers of sound effects as he did on the impressive visuals.
SUPPLEMENTS
The supplements on Criterion’s edition is a mix of material from the 2007 DVD and new material created specifically for this release. From the earlier disc we have an excellent, deeply informative and thoughtful audio commentary by writer/director Guillermo del Toro, who also provides a very brief, 30-second introduction (in which he says making the film almost killed him). Also from that disc are four making-of featurettes: “The Power of Myth” (which focuses on the film’s themes and allusions to classical fairy tales; 14 min.), “Pan and the Fairies” (which focuses on character design and special effects; 30 min.), “The Color and the Shape” (which focuses on the use of color, shape, and texture; 4 min.), and “The Melody Echoes the Fairy Tale” (which focuses on the use of music; 3 min.). Also from that disc is an interactive director’s notebook, which presents pages from del Toro’s working notebook of preparatory drawings and concepts and also offers various video “pods” with elaboration by del Toro, and three video programs that compare selected production storyboards and del Toro’s thumbnail sketches with the final film, the visual effects work for the Green Fairy, and elements of the film’s score. We also have four short animated comics illustrated by Jason Shawn Alexander, Guy Davis, and Michael Kaluta that feature prequel stories for the Giant Toad, the Fairies, the Faun, and the Pale Man. New to Criterion’s disc is “The Spirit of Fairy Tales,” a 39-minute interview with del Toro by fantasy novelist Cornelia Funke. Give their mutual interests, they talk with ease about fairy tales, myths, folklore, and how they affected del Toro’s storytelling in Pan’s Labyrinth (one of the most interesting comments he makes has to do with the fairy tale’s freedom from the burden of a three-act structure, relying instead on the simple concept of “And then … and then ...”). There is also a new half-hour video interview with actor Doug Jones, who plays both the Faun and the Pale Man. He is easily one of the most entertaining interview subjects I have watched in some time; he’s downright hilarious impersonating del Toro, with whom he worked on Mimic (1997) and Hellboy (2004), as well, but he also offers quite a bit of insight into the actor’s craft that made me appreciate his work that much more (plus at one point he uses the term “geekgasm”). Also new to this edition is three minutes of footage of actor Ivana Baquero’s audition for the film, along with a teaser trailer, theatrical trailer, and seven TV spots.

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Overall Rating: (4)