Pan's Labyrinth

Pan's Labyrinth is a 2006 Spanish-language dark fantasy film written, directed and co-produced by Guillermo del Toro. The film stars Ivana Baquero, Sergi López, Maribel Verdú, Doug Jones, and Ariadna Gil.
The story takes place in Francoist Spain in the summer of 1944. The narrative intertwines this real world with a mythical world centered on an overgrown, abandoned labyrinth and a mysterious faun with whom the protagonist, Ofelia, interacts. Ofelia's stepfather, Captain Vidal, hunts down the Spanish Maquis who resist the Francoist regime, while Ofelia's pregnant mother grows increasingly ill. Ofelia meets several strange and magical creatures who become central to her story, leading her through the trials of the old labyrinth garden. The film employs make-up, animatronics, and CGI effects to bring life to its creatures.
Del Toro stated that he considers the story to be a parable, influenced by fairy tales. It addresses and continues themes related to his 2001 film The Devil's Backbone, to which Pan's Labyrinth is a spiritual successor, according to del Toro in his director's DVD commentary. The film is an international co-production film between Spain and Mexico.
Pan's Labyrinth premiered on 27 May 2006 at the Cannes Film Festival, where it received a 22-minute-long standing ovation. The film was theatrically released by Warner Bros. Pictures in Spain on 11 October and in Mexico on 20 October. It garnered widespread critical acclaim, with praise towards its visual and makeup effects, direction, screenplay, cinematography, musical score, set design, and cast performances. It grossed $83 million at the worldwide box office and won numerous awards, including three Academy Awards, three BAFTA Awards including Best Film Not in the English Language, the Ariel Award for Best Picture, and the Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form. Pan's Labyrinth has since been considered to be Del Toro's magnum opus, one of the best fantasy films ever made, as well as one of the greatest films of the 2000s and the 21st century.
A sequel, titled 3993, was conceived by del Toro but ultimately cancelled. A novelization by del Toro and Cornelia Funke was published in 2019.

Plot

In a fairy tale, Princess Moanna, whose father is the king of the underworld, visits the human world, where the sunlight blinds her and erases her memory. She becomes mortal and eventually dies. The king believes that eventually her spirit will return to the underworld, so he builds labyrinths around the world which act as portals, in preparation for her return.
In 1944 Francoist Spain, ten-year-old Ofelia travels with her pregnant mother Carmen to meet Captain Vidal, her new stepfather. Vidal, a Civil Guard officer of the Armed Police Corps and devotee of Falangism, has been assigned to hunt down the Spanish Maquis. A large stick insect, which Ofelia believes to be a fairy, leads Ofelia into an ancient stone labyrinth, but she is stopped by Vidal's housekeeper Mercedes, who is secretly supporting her brother Pedro and other members of the Maquis. That night, the insect appears in Ofelia's bedroom, where it transforms into a fairy and leads her through the labyrinth. There, she meets a faun, who believes she is the reincarnation of Princess Moanna. He gives her a book and tells her she will find in it three tasks to complete in order for her to acquire immortality and return to her kingdom. During a dinner with several important figures, Vidal announces that he will stockpile food and supplies in the granary in order to weaken the Maquis and their collaborators. The local population can only access supplies through ration cards. Vidal secures the granary with a thick padlock, to which Mercedes pretends to give him a unique copy of the key.
Ofelia completes the first task — retrieving a key from the belly of a giant toad — but becomes worried about her mother, whose condition is worsening. The faun gives Ofelia a mandrake root, instructing her to keep it under Carmen's bed and regularly supply it with blood, which seems to ease Carmen's illness. Accompanied by three fairy guides and equipped with a piece of magic chalk, Ofelia then completes the second task — retrieving a dagger from the lair of the Pale Man, a child-eating monster. Despite the faun's warning not to consume anything there, she gives in to her temptation and eats two grapes, awakening the Pale Man. He devours two of the fairies and chases Ofelia, but she manages to escape. Infuriated at her disobedience, the faun refuses to give Ofelia the third task and abandons her.
During this time, Ofelia becomes aware of Vidal's ruthlessness in the course of hunting down the Maquis. He interrogates and kills two local farmers. Days later, the Maquis launch an attack to distract Vidal and his men and steal supplies from the barn, using a second copy of the key Mercedes gave to Pedro. Upon returning to the barn, Vidal discovers that the lock has not been forced. Vidal interrogates and tortures a captive member of the Maquis, who turns out to be a stutterer and fails to escape unscathed when Vidal orders him to count to 3 without stuttering. He asks Doctor Ferreiro to tend to the captive, whom Ferreiro then euthanises at his own urging. Realising that Ferreiro is collaborating with the Maquis, Vidal kills him. He later catches Ofelia tending to the mandrake root, and considers her delusional for her belief in fairy tales. Carmen agrees and throws the root into the fire. She immediately develops painful contractions and dies giving birth to Vidal's son.
Vidal grows suspicious of Mercedes, connecting her to the Maquis raid, due to the unharmed lock on the barn. A discovered spy, Mercedes tries to escape with Ofelia, but they are caught. Ofelia is locked in her bedroom, while Mercedes is taken to be interrogated since the stutterer had indirectly betrayed her before dying, as well as finding several stored provisions from the barn in his possession confirming Vidal's suspicions about Mercedes. Mercedes frees herself, and slashes Vidal’s face in her escape to re-join the Maquis. The faun, having changed his mind about giving Ofelia a chance to perform the third task, returns and tells her to bring her newborn brother into the labyrinth to complete it. Ofelia retrieves the baby and flees into the labyrinth. Vidal pursues her as the Maquis launch an attack on a Civil Guard outpost.
Ofelia meets the faun at the centre of the labyrinth. The faun suggests drawing a small amount of the baby's blood, as completing the third task and opening the portal to the underworld requires the blood of an innocent, but Ofelia refuses to harm her brother. Vidal finds her talking to the faun, whom he cannot see. The faun leaves, and Vidal takes the baby from Ofelia's arms before shooting her. Vidal returns to the labyrinth's entrance, where he is surrounded by the Maquis, including Mercedes and Pedro. Knowing that he will be killed, he hands the baby to Mercedes, asking that his son be told the time of his father's death, wanting to smash his pocket watch the same way Vidal's father had done during the war. Mercedes replies that his son will not even know his name, before Pedro shoots Vidal dead.
Mercedes enters the labyrinth and comforts a dying Ofelia. Drops of Ofelia's blood fall down the centre of the spiral stone staircase onto an altar. Ofelia, well dressed and uninjured, then appears in a golden throne room. The King of the underworld tells her that, by choosing to spill her own blood rather than that of another, she passed the final test. The faun praises Ofelia for her choice, addressing her as "Your Highness". The Queen of the underworld, her mother, invites Ofelia to sit next to her father and rule at his side. Back in the stone labyrinth, Ofelia smiles as she dies.
The epilogue completes the tale of Princess Moanna, stating that she returned to the Underworld, ruled with kindness and justice for many centuries, and left little traces of her time in the human realm, "visible only to those who know where to look."

Cast

Ivana Baquero as Ofelia / Princess Moanna, a child who comes to believe she is the reincarnation of a princess from the underworld. Del Toro said he was nervous about casting the lead role, and that finding the 10-year-old Spanish actress was purely accidental. "The character I wrote was initially younger, about 8 or 9, and Ivana came in and she was a little older than the character, with this curly hair which I never imagined the girl having. But I loved her first reading, my wife was crying and the camera woman was crying after her reading and I knew hands down Ivana was the best actress that had shown up, yet I knew that I needed to change the screenplay to accommodate her age." Baquero says that Del Toro sent her many comics and fairy tales to help her "get more into the atmosphere of Ofelia and more into what she felt". She says she thought the film was "marvelous", and that "at the same time it can bring you pain, and sadness, and scariness, and happiness".
Sergi López as Captain Vidal, Ofelia's new stepfather who serves as captain in the Armed Police Corps and is a devotee of Falangism. Del Toro met with López in Barcelona, a year and a half before filming began, to ask him to play Vidal. In parts of Spain, López was considered a melodramatic or comedic actor, and the Madrid-based producers told del Toro, "You should be very careful because you don't know about these things because you're Mexican, but this guy is not going to be able to deliver the performance"; del Toro replied "Well, it's not that I don't know, it's that I don't care". Of his character, López said: "He is the most evil character I've ever played in my career. It is impossible to improve upon it; the character is so solid and so well written. Vidal is deranged, a psychopath who is impossible to defend. Even though his father's personality marked his existence—and is certainly one of the reasons for his mental disorder—that cannot be an excuse. It would seem to be very cynical to use that to justify or explain his cruel and cowardly acts. I think it is great that the film does not consider any justification of fascism."
Maribel Verdú as Mercedes, Vidal's housekeeper. Del Toro selected Verdú to play the compassionate revolutionary because he "saw a sadness in her which he thought would be perfect for the part".
Doug Jones as the Faun and the Pale Man. As the Faun, Jones guides Ofelia to the fantasy world. As the Pale Man, he plays a grotesque monster with an appetite for children. Jones had previously worked with del Toro on Mimic and Hellboy, and said the director sent him an email saying, "You must be in this film. No one else can play this part but you." Jones responded enthusiastically to an English translation of the script, but then found out the film was in Spanish, a language he did not speak. Jones says he was "terrified" and del Toro suggested learning the script phonetically, but Jones rejected this, preferring to learn the words himself. He said, "I really, really buckled down and committed myself to learning that word for word and I got the pronunciation semi-right before I even went in," using the five hours a day he spent getting the costume and make-up on to practice the words. Del Toro later decided to dub Jones with the voice of Pablo Adán, "an authoritative theatre actor", but Jones's efforts remained valuable because the voice actor was able to match his delivery with Jones's mouth movements. Jones's dual casting is intended to suggest that the Pale Man is either a creation of the Faun or the Faun himself in another form.
Ariadna Gil as Carmen / Queen of the Underworld, Ofelia's mother and Vidal's wife.
Álex Angulo as Doctor Ferreiro, a doctor in the service of Vidal, but an anti-Francoist.
Manolo Solo as Garcés, one of Vidal's lieutenants.
César Vea as Serrano, one of Vidal's lieutenants.
Roger Casamajor as Pedro, Mercedes' brother and one of the Maquis.
Federico Luppi as King of the Underworld, Ofelia's father.
Pablo Adán as Narrator / Voice of Faun.