Susan Watkins -- Pan's Labyrinth

(Outside Reading/Watching #4)


The movie Pan's Labyrinth is one of the more beautiful movies I've ever seen, and a perfect example of a faerie story as discussed by Tolkien in his "Ethics of Elfland." The story is about a little girl, Ofelia, whose mother is very ill and stepfather is cruel and dangerous-- she wanders into a labyrinthine garden near her house one day and meets the mysterious creature Pan, who tells her she is really a princess from another land who is wandering lost in the world as we know it. He tells her that to return to her kingdom she must complete several tasks which will prove her worth. Ofelia soon finds that Pan's world and her own are bleeding into eachother, and that the boundaries between what is "real" and what is "imaginary" are not as distinct as she thought.

I think my favorite part of this movie is the dark flavor of the faerieland Ofelia journeys through. Another of my favorite movies, The Bridge to Terabithia, is an equally beautiful faerie story but is altogether lighthearted-- even those villians which live in Terabithia appeal more to the viewer's sense of action than awe. This is appropriate for a children's movie, but Pan's Labyrinth is meant for a mature audience and therefore has far more autonomy to explore the darker, more disturbing side of faerieland. The creatures Ofelia encounters are eerie at best and downright frightening at worst, and her faerieland is filled with equal parts beauty, fear, sadness, and tremendum. I love this because I think a crucial element of faerie as Tolkien and Lewis describe are the elements of possibility, unknown, and untamed wilderness... in faerieland, anything is possible and we are bound to be both mesmerized and terrified by parts of it when we truly explore.

Another thing I like about this movie is how its two storylines run alongside eachother-- the storyline of Ofelia and her family in fascist 1944 Spain and the storyline of Ofelia discovering the magical world of Pan. I've only seen it once so I haven't had a chance to really examine the relationship between the stories, but I was able to draw a few and I'd like to watch it again in order to look into more. One thing I really drew away from it was how callous indifference and pride instantly destroy the faerie-- at one point, Ofelia's stepfather discovers a magic mandrake root she has hidden to help with her mother's sickness, and upon finding it he destroys it and its magic is ruined. This is such a great image for our daily lives, realizing that as soon as we become indifferent or prideful towards eachother and towards the world we lose the ability to see magic in our surroundings.

I'd definitly recommend this movie-- it's in Spanish though, so if you are not a fan of reading subtitles you may have to either study up on your Spanish vocabulary or take it in small doses :)