Gray Alston and Jordan Noble
“A long time ago, in the underground realm,
where there are no lies or pain, there lived a Princess
who dreamed of the human world. She dreamed of blue
skies, soft breeze, and sunshine. One day, eluding her
keepers, the Princess escaped. Once outside, the
brightness blinded her and erased every trace of the past
from her memory. She forgot who she was and where
she came from. Her body suffered cold, sickness, and
pain. Eventually, she died. However, her father, the
King, always knew that the Princess' soul would
return, perhaps in another body, in another place, at
another time. And he would wait for her, until he drew
his last breath, until the world stopped turning...”
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0457430/quotes
After moving with her mother to a military
outpost in Spain, a young girl named Ofelia
discovers a labyrinth in the woods, and finds
herself drawn into a real world fairytale, filled
with danger and magic. Set in 1944, the story takes
place during the end of World War II. While
Ofelia’s mother labors through her pregnancy,
Ofelia learns from a mysterious faun that she is a
princess from another world, reborn into a human
body. The faun tells her that she must complete
three tasks if she is to return to her world and rule
as queen.
Pan’s labyrinth is a wonderfully told story that
captures the minds of its’ audience with tales of magic
and adventure. The viewer can find themselves
fighting against fascist soldiers in one moment, and
drawing doorways into other worlds the next. One of
the more interesting things I noticed about this movie
was the connection to The Golden Compass. Both
stories follow a girl (Ofelia, Lyra) who is given a
special item (Book of Crossroads, alethiometer). Each
of the girls must travel to a new world to complete a
specific task. Whether or not this connection was
intentional or not, the fact that the stories are so
similar really helped me to understand the story
better.
As I watched Pan’s Labyrinth one scene stuck
out in my mind as being pivotal in my
understanding of human rights throughout the
film. When the captain captures the last living
rebel he plans to ask him to tell of the rebel plans.
He notices the captives stutter and says “If you can
count to three without stuttering I will let you
free”. The poor rebel can not complete the task and
is brutally beaten for no purpose to the point of
wishing death upon himself, so that he does not
have to suffer. It made me realize how harsh a
person could be to one of their own kind, and
quite frankly it disgusts me to know the ignorance
of the human mind.
Ofelia’s adventure is not the only story to be
told. While Ofelia completes each of her three tasks,
her stepfather, a fascist captain, is hunting down a
group of rebels hiding in the woods. One of the
servants working at the outpost has a brother in the
rebellion, and she attempts to help them whenever she
can, along with the doctor caring for Ofelia’s mother.
The rebels are continually growing weaker, with their
only sign of hope being the reinforcements that they
have heard are on the way. But until they arrive they
are forced to fight against unbeatable odds, and they
suffer greatly for it.
Following the Spanish Civil War, rebels were
continuing to hide out in Spain, as the new fascist
regime sought to hunt them down. It was the belief of
the fascist regime that the rebels needed to be
completely eradicated to establish the new power in
the world. This belief is apparent during a scene in the
movie in which a captured rebel soldier is tortured to
the brink of death. During a break in the captain’s
assaulting of the man for information, the doctor
comes in and gives him medicine to end his life. When
the captain finds out about the doctor’s ending of the
rebel’s suffering, he kills the doctor in his anger. The
deaths of these men are prime examples of the
injustices committed by the fascist soldiers.
The death of the doctor and rebel lead to the
climax of the film. It is because of this that the secretly
rebel maid decides to try and run away, and Ofelia
goes with her. The two are caught and brought back to
the outpost, but their escape attempt gives the Rebel
reinforcements enough time to arrive. Just as the
captain is about to kill the maid, the rebels begin their
final assault on the outpost, and the captain finds
himself losing control of the situation entirely. It is at
this point that Ofelia seizes the opportunity and tries
to complete her final task. All of this is triggered by
the death of two men.
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Pan’s Labyrinth - film
Quote - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0457430/quotes
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Pictures
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http://www.solaceincinema.com/wpcontent/uploads/pans_labyrinth_ver4.jpg
http://viewfromacouch.files.wordpress.com/2010/05/pans-labyrinth-ofeliain-the-fig-tree.jpg
http://www.themovingarts.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/panslabyrinth-2.jpg
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_JvpwUz1nl4A/TNumzJfBxNI/AAAAAAAACvE/
CtXUwCmYm50/s1600/dvd.png
http://blogs.whatsontv.co.uk/movietalk/wp-content/gallery/panslabyrinth/pans-labyrinthfree_3.jpg