Gods and Monsters

Fairy tales in fascist Spain.

by Cindy Fuchs

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"Along time ago, in the Underground Realm," murmurs the narrator of Pan's Labyrinth, "there lived a princess who dreamt of a human world." As she wanders through it, this world is filled with beauty, with blue skies and soft breezes. And as she does so, the camera glides through a world where castles are built into underground cavern walls and the little girl lies dreaming — and bleeding.

The start of Guillermo del Toro's movie thus sets its beginning and end. As 11-year-old Ofelia (Ivana Baquero) escapes from the underground into the human world, she forgets where she came from. At present, 1944, she's traveling with her pregnant mother, Carmen (Ariadna Gil), en route to her new stepfather's military outpost in northern Spain. Captain Vidal (Sergi López) is a monster, almost literally (see the extraordinary scene where he stitches his own face following a hideous knife wound), a staunch Falangist who means to pass on his name and legacy to the son Carmen carries. The fact that Ofelia comes along is only troublesome. On their arrival ("15 minutes late," Vidal notes, disapprovingly, his pocket watch ticking loudly), Ofelia discovers the labyrinth that will lead her on a journey deep inside herself.

DOWN THE RABBIT HALL: Ivana Baquero enters Pan's Labyrinth.

If Vidal is categorically hateful and tyrannical, Ofelia's new friend at the outpost, the caretaker Mercedes (Maribel Verdú), is warm and noble, not only determined to help the girl survive her new surroundings, but also affiliated with the guerillas hiding out in the woods. Mercedes maintains her cover, tending to Vidal while slipping information to her fellows, despising her employer while yearning for freedom for her countrymen.

Ofelia's story parallels Mercedes', though it takes a fantastic shape. Her story is about stories: fairy and folk tales, legends and myths. As she tells her unborn brother stories about the past ("a sad, faraway land"), she opens the way into her own present, overseen by Doug Jones' towering faun. "You were not born of man," he growls, identifying her as the princess Moanna, lost daughter of an underground king. He hands her a volume with blank pages, The Book of Crossroads, declaring that it will show her future, though she must follow its instructions to discover whether she is worthy of being the princess and returning to her kingdom.

The instructions, which appear as Ofelia touches the book's pages, connecting her material and dream realms in the most visceral manner, include the sorts of tasks heroes must perform in order to free a people or claim authority. She's a wonderful hero, at once childlike and shrewd, flawed and courageous, utterly unlike most kids in movies. Crawling through a tunnel full of mud, bugs and rocks, she meets the toad from whom she's supposed to get a key: it grunts and stinks and presents a horrible gooey sight. "Hola," she says, quietly. "I'm Princess Moanna and I'm not afraid of you."

Conceived as a distaff companion piece to del Toro's The Devil's Backbone, Pan's Labyrinth takes up the time in Spanish history just following the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939, the setting for the first film). Now, five years later, Vidal wants a "new, clean Spain." The camera pushes in over a table full of fine food and crystal, a fireplace fully ablaze behind him. His dinner guests (loyal officers and their wives) grow increasingly uncomfortable as he articulates his thinking: the Republicans are "mistaken," he says, believing that everyone is equal. "The war is over and we won ... And if we need to kill every one of these vermin to settle it, then we'll kill them all, and that's that."

Vidal makes a formidable fascist, a harsh figure in his uniform, dictating terms within his home and outside (his brutal murders of suspected rebels even take his troops aback). In sharp contrast to Ofelia, he's a blatant coward, and haunted by his own story (his father was a general who died courageously on the battlefield). He comes to despise Ofelia not only for the distraction she provides her mother, but also for her determination and selflessness. Ofelia develops a canny sort of trust and distrust of her stepfather, understanding his power (when she finds her mother bleeding, she calls for his help) as well as his malice.

As their stories inform one another, Ofelia's belief in her other realm suggests that Mercedes' faith in the rebels' cause is similarly both fictional and real, at the same time. (Mercedes' devotion to her brother, a rebel leader, anticipates Ofelia's to her own brother, about to be born). Ofelia contends not only with Vidal, but also with the Faun, who's never quite untrustworthy. As her belief in herself comes full circle, as she discovers her crucial mythological role, she also becomes more real than her gorgeous allegory can bear.

(c_fuchs@citypaper.net)

Pan's Labyrinth

Written and directed by Guillermo del ToroA Picturehouse releaseOpens Friday at Ritz Bourse