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Before eccentric director Guillermo del Toro was filming giant robots and collaborating on mammoth movies like The Hobbit, he was best known for quirky, atmospheric horror films interspersed with the occasional niche comic book flick.
Yet widespread critical acclaim would largly elude him until 2006, when with a supreme effort, del Toro brought his long-gestating passion project to the silver screen.
As is by now expected of the post-Ground Zero timewarp, it creates more than a little cognitive dissonance to reflect on the fact that Pan’s Labyrinth is now eighteen years old. Yet this film sets itself apart from other post-1997 fare by being an actual movie instead of movie-like product.
Forming a loose duology with 2001’s The Devil’s Backbone, Pan’s Labyrinth is also set against the chaos of the Spanish Civil War – though instead of taking place during the conflict proper, the latter film revolves around the mop-up operations in the war’s aftermath. Del Toro earns grudging compliments for making the defeated Republican guerillas sympathetic, especially despite new historical revelations that continue coming to light about the Reds’ atrocities. But, every story needs someone to root for.
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Film industry lore has it that del Toro took no compensation for making this film–neither salary nor points off the back end. That Pan’s Labyrinth is a labor of love shows in the exquisite visuals, the haunting score, and the subtle, masterful writing. Secular, pagan, and Biblical themes are interwoven and somehow kept in harmonious balance throughout the whole story. And the Christian moral vision ends up eclipsing the others. A Red sympathizer may deliver a paean to radical equality, but the encompassing narrative stands on hierarchy. And the sharp contrast between the tyrannical Captain and the meek would-be Princess casts Pan’s Labyrinth as a vivid meditation on leading by lording over others vs by serving.
The other day I sat down with Wes and Rett of the Generation Video podcast to discuss Pan’s Labyrinth and my currently funding dark fantasy novel Lord of Fate. To say that we took a deep dive into del Toro’s masterpiece would be an understatement, so buckle in for a trip far down the cinematic rabbit hole. Listen on Spotify or Spreaker:
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I’ve never really thought that Pan’s Labyrinth has much to do with the Spanish Civil War at its core, that’s just the backdrop. It allows us to see the monstrous character of Captain Vidal and provides a tease of a mundane escape for Ofelia, but otherwise doesn’t really affect her arc.
The Devil’s Backbone is much more about the war, and not just because it takes place within in. The boys at the center of the story are clearly at the mercy of the winds of war, even if they have a brief period of solace in the orphanage. They literally walk past an unexploded bomb every day to remind them of how close the war could come at any moment.
And what I find interesting is that that movie lacks heroic Republican characters. Some of the guardians are simply in it for the money. The most sympathetic teachers are still looking for a chance to run at the first opportunity. Casares at least has some care for the boys’ fates, but he’s both powerless (even being literally impotent to hammer in the point.) The boys themselves are the real protagonists, but neither understand nor care about the war, and are compared to cave men struggling in a brutal world with no support.
There is a striking visual of the schoolroom where the cross has been removed, but its outline is still visible due to it blocking dirt and fading of the paint while it was still up. It’s not hard to take that as a statement that this is what you get when you remove God from the equation, though I don’t think that’s what Guillermo del Toro intended.
Really Guillermo del Toro gives me the same vibes as Mike Mignola in that both reject Catholicism in their statements, but make free use of Catholic imagery and so consistently end up making more spiritual statements than they probably were aware that they were making (not that everything in either of their works can be justified.) No wonder that the two have worked together on multiple occasions.
We are agreed on all points. Watching both films back-to-back shows that the director considers neither side the “good guys”. Instead, war is the bad guy.
NB: The initial band of guerillas that Vidal’s men kill have been confirmed by del Toro to be the boys from Devil’s Backbone years later.