Visionary director Guillermo del Toro (Hellboy, Blade II, The Devils Backbone) creates a richly unique and inspirational epic with Pan's Labyrinth, a Gothic folk/fairy tale set against a very real postwar era of Franco's Spain.
In the opening sequences of the film we are introduced to the protagonist Ofelia. The audience instantly sympathises with her lust to explore and discover the untainted forest, which surrounds the military outpost. Her position in a remote military outpost is apparent due to her new step father 'commander', who demands that her sick pregnant mother give birth in his presence.
Powerless and lonely in a place of great danger, Ofelia lives out her own dark fable as she confronts monsters both otherworldly and human after she discovers a neglected, decaying labyrinth behind the family home. There she meets Pan, a fantastical creature (faun) who challenges her with three tasks which he claims will reveal her true royal identity.
The surreal ambient nature of the labyrinth is present through the filming style, colours and textures. the military outpost is visually unexciting (camouflage, tents, huts etc), whereas the labyrinth is full of spirals carved into the walls and majestic deep blue colours, that suggest a spiritual link. in order to capture the environment of the labyrinth and the places Ofelia must visit, Toro uses wide pans and often cuts to long shots.
From my perspective Guillermo has created a film everyone can relate to, he has created an underlying sub-text, which explores the struggle every individual take in order to discover their identity. the metaphoric Gothic fairy tale connotes a dream like state of the subconscious mind. I believe that the exaggerated occurrences are a reflection on how people in reality struggle to discover who they really are.
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