Pan's Labyrinth - Main Ideas + Supporting Evidence

Main Ideas:

Man's greatest desire is for power.

• Farmhouse setting juxtaposed with the wilderness
• Wide shots of Vidal distance us from him, especially in the forest
• Low angle shots of the men (both rebels and Vidal)
• Vidal's costume, alluding to him as a Hitler-like figure
  

• "the world is a cruel place" - Carmen
• "He's not my father!" - Ofelia
• "The thing that slumbers there, it is not human" - Faun
• "She's just a woman" - Vidal
• "You've found my weakness: Pride" - Vidal
• "Mistaken belief that we are all equal" - Vidal
• "In Franco's Spain!" - Garces
• "This is the only decent way to die" - Vidal
• "To show his son how a man dies with honour" - Guest.

Rebellion and Disobedience are often necessary for discovery:

• The Woodlands. Straying off the path (Ofelia at beginning, Goya influence of symmetry)
• Rugged costumes in natural colours are what we want, not cold gray blue uniforms
• Ofelia/del Toro rebellion of light and setting (trust dark, woodlands again)
• Labyrinth - despite Mercedes warning that she "better not go in there", Ofelia travels through the Labyrinth, a place where (as del Toro describes) is "essentially a place of transit" where one goes through obstacles to discover how to get to the middle and come out with a better understanding of oneself. It is a journey of discovery that ends in the middle: where you are supposed to be.
• Ofelia's acts of disobedience (straying from the path, disobeying the faun - eating the grapes, refusing to give up her brother, going into the Labyrinth). All these are choices she makes. These choices lead to consequences that shape her. In the end she makes the ultimate discovery: herself, dressed in golds and reds (red shoes, Dorothy allusion) in her Kingdom; the final place of fantasy.
• Shoes imagery. There are so many shoe shots. Think about where those shoes go. Into the fig tree, mud, off the path, in the labyrinth, everywhere she shouldn't go. Her shoes always get muddy (again rebelling from the typical Hollywood image of a girly heroine) until she discovers her real place on the royal throne of the Underground Realm. Only then are her shoes clean and pretty.
  

• "You'll see that life isn't like one of your fairytales" - Carmen
• "Create your own door" - Faun
• "You'll ruin your shoes" - Carmen
• "Better not go in there" - Mercedes
• "You disobeyed me!" - Faun
• "You could have just obeyed me" - Vidal
  
• "To obey, for the sake of obeying... Only people like you can do that Captain Vidal" - Dr. Ferreiro

The challenges that life presents require faith and imagination to overcome them.

• Vidal's symbolic manifestation in the three fantastical villains (he is too evil for just one, he needs to be the Greedy Frog, the Pale Man and the Faun. These creatures also aid del Toro's political parable)
• Parallels between fantasy and reality. To overcome the evil of the real world, Ofelia must escape to a world where she is in control.
• Lullaby throughout fantasy pieces
• Mercedes/Ofelia parallels. Mercedes deals with the gritty reality whilst Ofelia pursues the unknown realm of the imagination
• Doors symbol. Sign of escape for Ofelia. Going through doors represents a new reality being discovered, leaving the other world behind.

• "Are you a fairy?" - Ofelia
• "This is the Book of Crossroads" - Faun, "there's nothing there" - Ofelia
• You'll see that life isn't like your fairytales" - Carmen
• "You'll look like a princess" - Carmen
• "It is in pain that we find the meaning of life" - Chaplain (reading eulogy)