Disobeying the Faun
It is a common theme in films within the fantasy genre to contrast the fantastic with harsh realities. Young, innocent children are often transported by some unknown magic to a world of fantasy where they unlock a power denied to them in their real lives. The Pevensie children in The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe[1] escape the horrors of World War II in the fairy tale world of Narnia, Dorothy runs away from the dreary life in Kansas, escaping into the magical land of Oz[2] – even Harry Potter is able to realise his potential, travelling to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry to escape his prison underneath the stairs[3]. It is in this same spirit that Spanish auteur Guillermo Del Toro gives us his Ofelia in El Laberinto Del Fauno – Pan’s Labyrinth[4].
Del Toro’s young heroine navigates her way through these dual worlds of fantasy and reality in Spain of 1944. He uses the theme of disobedience to give Ofelia her character, as a means of telling a fairy tale for adults[5]. Her mother expects her obedience, the Captain demands it, yet she disobeys them and even the faun with increasingly dire consequences as she is drawn further and further into her fantasy.
Our first glimpse of Ofelia is grim. She lays on the ground, bloody hand outstretched. She is breathing the shallow breaths of one not long for this world. The blood which streams from her nose slowly recedes: we’re seeing the end of the story in reverse, but within moments we’ll barely remember as we are swept away. A narrator, whose voice we will later recognise as that of the faun, recounts a fairy tale of a young princess lost from a magical underground realm but fated to return one day. As the narration comes to an end we meet Ofelia at the beginning of the story. She is fit, happy, and far from the horrors we know await her. She is reading a fairy tale book, but is the tale she reads the one we’ve hear described, or is what we’re seeing a continuation of that fairy tale?
She disobeys her mother when she finds the stone depicting the eye of a statue, the action of replacing it initiates the fantasy and releases the fairy. Mercedes warns her not to enter the labyrinth, yet that night she does and meets the faun. When she enters the monster’s lair she disobeys the faun and eats a grape, causing the death of two of her three fairy guardians and failing her second task. The faun later comes back to offer her a final chance. She takes her brother to the labyrinth, where the faun tells her that in order to enter the underworld realm she must spill his innocent blood. Ofelia disobediently refuses, sacrificing her ethereal birthright and when the Captain comes to kill her he finds her alone, though it is uncertain whether that is because he lacks the insight, or because the faun does not exist. As Mercedes weeps, humming, over her near-lifeless body a soft light shines on her and she seems to awaken. Transported to the underworld throne room Ofelia is told by the wizened King that by sacrificing her blood for that of an innocent she has regained her throne. Her disobedience has paid off and all that she had lost is restored to her. She once more has a father, her mother is the Queen (holding her infant brother) and the two dead fairies have been returned to life, fluttering around her. Her new subjects all applaud and everything is so bright. But the sweet hums of Mercedes bring us back to the centre of the labyrinth where Ofelia draws her last breath.
We are left to decide which reality we choose to believe in: was Ofelia really the lost princess? Or was that just some fairy tale she chose to believe in; a final act of disobedience, refusing in the end to die an orphan on the cold stone floor of some ancient ruins?
[1] Andrew Adamson (dir.), The Chronicles of Narnia: Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, (Walt Disney Pictures, 2005).
[2] Victor Fleming (dir.), The Wizard of Oz, (MGM, 1939).
[3] Chris Columbus (dir.), Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, (Warner Bros, 2001).
[4] Guillermo Del Toro (dir.), El Laberinto Del Fauno, (Estudios Picasso, 2006).
[5] Guillermo Del Toro Interview [ign.com, 23 Jan 2007], <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUEXYsHaX2U>, accessed 05 Sep 2013.
Behind the Fourth Wall
Jenna De Bono
junebullet
Brendan O'Callaghan
SB
Behind the Fourth Wall 