“One McDonald’s Fairy Meal Please” -The Pale Man
Pan’s Labyrinth
To be very incredibly honest, I was very excited to experience this movie for the first time. I genuinely enjoy fantasy films in any format I can and knew that I was going to be in for an experience unlike any other with this one. I knew beforehand that Doug Jones was in it, and that it was directed by Guillermo del Toro- so it HAD to be good. I’m also a big fan of the Jim Henson movie Labyrinth and the iterations of the labyrinth myth in the Percy Jackson books and in Greek mythology.
What I was NOT expecting about Pan’s Labyrinth was, well, any of it. Legend tells of a princess who lived in the underground, dreaming of the world above. She escaped, and forgot who she was, and eventually died. Her father grieved and vowed to wait until her soul returned to the Underground. The REAL story begins with a little girl named Ofelia (played by actress Ivana Baquero), wandering into the unknown after fixing a mysterious statue in the forest. She learns of a labyrinth next to the camp/mill that her and her pregnant mother travel to- a pile of rocks old as it gets, “there even before the mill”. A mysterious walking stick bug follows Ofelia, observing. I wasn’t expecting for Pan’s Labyrinth to be a World War II film, either. Or the brutally gory tone set when the Captain (Sergi Lopez) beats an innocent boy and father to death, shooting them to put them out of their misery. It was reminiscent of the hammer scene in Midsommar- I almost threw up my McDonald’s chicken nuggets right there.
From there, the mysterious walking stick bug transforms into a literal fairy, leading the young Ofelia into the labyrinth- down a set of stairs, where she crosses into the unknown. She is greeted by a satyr, a faun (Doug Jones), who names her as the lost princess. She must complete a quest before she is to return to the world she is from. She accepts. Her first task? Retrieve a key from a giant toad poisoning the roots of an ancient fig tree. Jesus christ almighty, the toad scene freaked me out. This movie has an understanding of practical effects that most CGI-bastardized films fail to grasp nowadays. You can’t really animate slime with CGI, so that mud and that goop and everything in that scene had to really be… well, slimy. I almost threw up my McDonald’s… again. Holy cabooses. But SO GOOD.
We learn that Mercedes, the housemaid (Maribel Verdu), is the rebels’ spy on the inside, and that she has been supplying them with information about the Captain’s plans. Ofelia returns to the labyrinth, having completed her task and retrieved the key from the stomach of the frog. The faun… seems untrustworthy. The next day, the book predicts blood, and blood does come- in the form of her mother. Her mother is bleeding all over the floor, from complications with the pregnancy. Did I mention Ofelia’s mother is deathly ill with the Captain’s baby? The faun visits Ofelia personally to give her a remedy to her mother’s sickness and make sure that she completes the second task. Mercedes visits the rebel base to bring news, medicine, and hope.
I’d like to take a moment to write a lot about the second task and the sheer production value that practical effects have that CGI simply can’t replicate. CGI produces a sort of ‘uncanny valley’ effect that makes the audience feel that something is off, a sense of unease, and that reality is not ‘real’. CGI can’t replicate the minor muscle movements that humans and animals have, due to their complexity. It struggles to capture the flow of hair and fabric- there’s a reason that the Muppets always have one moving flowing part to their design, so that they seem more alive! In fact, I think why puppets work so well over machines is that at their core, they are human operated and connected to a living breathing thing in a way that computers will never be able to. CGI, until now with Avatar: The Way of Water, has consistently struggled to animate anything with water- it’s why when you see real slime in The Thing (1982), it feels real, and gross, and icky; and when you see CGI slime in The Thing (2011), it just feels dry, rubbery and wrong. The second task has Doug Jones again, not as the faun but as as the Pale Man, a child-eating monster that lives within the labyrinth. And Ofelia isn’t in some green screen room, either- that’s a FULL SET, which is something we don’t see often nowadays. Because it’s all tangible, and real, and not uncanny, it’s TERRIFYING when Ofelia eats the grape and the Pale Man wakes up. Beyond scary. He ripped into those fairies like they were tasty little chicken nuggets… I think I threw up my McDonald’s for real that time. Doug Jones’ performance deserved every award it didn’t get. But you have to take that with a grain of salt, because I think Doug Jones is a fantastic actor.
As far as the rest of the plot goes, the rebels are discovered, Ofelia’s mandrake root and labyrinth are discovered, she is shot and refuses to spill the blood of an innocent for the third task, and plot twist! She's the ‘innocent’- it was a test. Ofelia rejoins her father and mother and takes her place as a ruler of the underworld.
Pan’s Labyrinth was an unexpected but wonderfully made movie, and I really enjoyed getting to experience it for the first time (even though my stomach did not). The design and practical effects were stunning and made the film a masterpiece. I think that this film was my favorite out of all of the movies that I watched this semester.
