Young Ofelia (Ivana Baquero) travels with her fragile and pregnant mother (Ariadna Gil) to the outpost of her new stepfather (Sergi López), a fascist captain entrusted with exterminating the remaining “rebels” hiding in the hills in the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War. Confronted by the cruelty of the world, Ofelia finds temporary refuge in an ancient labyrinth, where a faun (Doug Jones) informs her she is the long lost princess of the Underworld, and if she will complete three tasks, she can return to that land. While she faces magical threats, Mercedes (Maribel Verdú), the housekeeper, acts as an informant for the rebels.
A dark, harsh, bloody fantasy, Pan’s Labyrinth is a fable for a generation brought up on Saving Private Ryan and, perhaps, Hellraiser. It is the Brothers Grimm, cutting off the wicked stepsister’s toes and plucking out eyes, but with 5.1 surround sound. It is unrelenting and not for the squeamish, or anyone prone to nightmares.
It is also beautiful.
Guillermo del Toro is the most stylish director working, with only Tim Burton as close competition. He has an eye for what looks magical on film, and an affinity for monsters. Both are evident. Shot after shot (Ofelia in the labyrinth, Pan greeting her, the fairy-bug on the edge of the bed, the dying tree) could stand without the rest of the film, as artwork to be hung in museums. This is masterful stuff. His creations are marvels as well. Pan is impressive, and has been getting most of the press, but the Pale Man (also portrayed by mime-artist Doug Jones, best known as amphibian-psychic Abe Sapien in Hellboy) is the real accomplishment. A fiend with removable eyes that fit into his palms, if he can’t mentally stunt your prepubescent child, nothing can.
But it is the moments that are great accomplishments, not the whole, and a movie is more than the sum of its parts. The story is too simple. I should say “stories.” The fantasy segment is disconnected from the war plot, and while featured in all the advertising, gets short shrift onscreen. It is a very simple tale, with the predictability of a children’s book. The war story isn’t much more complex, and compared to almost any other war movie, little happens. The movie is two unremarkable stories, and that doesn’t add up to one interesting one.
It doesn’t help that we’re not given a consistent point of view. Why don’t we stay with Ofelia? It seems to be her story, yet she is abandoned for long periods as we follow Mercedes, the captain, and even the doctor for a time. This lessens the intimacy of the film, making us not confidants of a girl stuck in a tragic situation, but voyeurs to a long past struggle.
Pan’s Labyrinth owes much (too much) to del Toro’s previous examination of the Spanish Civil War, The Devil’s Backbone. It too had a child encountering dark magic while the “real” world produced greater horrors. It isn’t the first time that a director copied himself (Hitchcock made a career out of it), but I’d have preferred originality not only in the art direction. Like The Devil’s Backbone, people act in stupid ways just to move the plot. (If someone has the nerve and the reason to stab an enemy multiple times, including a particularly gruesome face slash, why not kill the person? The only reason here is that the enemy is needed in the next scene.) Also like Backbone it gets tiring waiting for things that are obviously going to happen. When Ofelia is given her pretty new dress, it is clear that she’s going to ruin it, so why is it presented with great drama and suspense? When she’s told not to eat anything in the fantasy land, everyone in the theater knows she will (although we know this only because it is a cliché; it is a ridiculous action, even for a child). When the sleeping drug is put, drop by drop into a glass, and the bottle is placed center stage, I sighed, knowing when and in what circumstances I’d see it used again.
Pan’s Labyrinth is filled with perfectly fashioned moments, and those are enough for me to recommend it, for one viewing anyway. But put together, they don’t amount to enough.