El Laberinto del fauno (incorrectly translated to Pan's Labyrinth)



Entwining reality and fantasy evoked the inherent "uses of enchantment" as ways that children modify and extend as well as interpret reality. They attempt to crystallise horror from the elusive fluid of moral and physical chaos and then construct a vision of coherent hope. Archetypes, like Pan, reverberate through human culture and provide powerful masks and amplifiers for ideas that may be too frightening to confront overtly.
The director interview on the DVD was fascinating. He mentioned the concern over the renaming of Laberinto del fauno, El as Pan's Labyrinth. He only wanted the faun to faintly allude to Pan and dressed him more as an relic of tree growth. He felt the sexuality that is embedded in any Pan character would distort the relationship in the film.
His vision of a pre-pubescent girl attempt to find meaning while embroiled at the front line of resistance to Franco's new regime is made especially poignant by the historical context. The resistance fighters also live in a horrible moral chaos and despite their sacrifices, temporary local successes and hope at the impending allied victory, we know that they were unaided by the victors of WWII and would have been exterminated sometime during the subsequent decades of Franco's dictatorship.
The dream sequence that the child constructs to add meaning to her own death is an interesting commentary on the contemporary rejection of heaven as seen by "established" churches (especially the Roman Catholic church of Spain). These orthodox heavens have been corrupted by association with the institutions that control them. More and more people are exploring "alternative" religious expressions often made up of a convenient pastiche of influences from anywhere.

Stephen Digby

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