Pan's Labyrinth

While it was not absolutely necessary, the basing of Pan’s Labyrinth in a real historical event complemented the film very effectively. Having Pan’s Labyrinth to be set in an actual event that took place helped the film in several subtle ways, not least of all being that it grounded it fairly effectively in realism, despite its incredibly gothic fantasy atmosphere. Despite fairies, faun, and other mystical creatures flitting across the screen for half of the production, there is an equal amount of guerrilla warfare occurring between a disreputable and highly belligerent military general captain and a group of guerrilla fighters attempting to defy him and Spain’s fascist government, all while guerrilla informants are working in the military camp. While this could have caused the movie to seem schizophrenic and unbalanced, it manages to both ground the story in realism and create a goal for the main heroine, Ofelia, to escape from the oppression that she receives in the realistic war stricken world concentrated in the form of her adopted father, the belligerent captain, and escape to her fantasy world where she can be free of her need to obey the captain. The theme of sacrifice and obedience is also seen very often in the film, especially concerning her three trials. In the first trial she is forced to crawl through a muddy labyrinth within a tree, and while not exactly tolling it does cause her to sacrifice the dress her mother made her, and causes her to disobey her own mother as well. In the next trial she is ordered not to eat from the table, a sacrifice because it holds an exquisite banquet. When she disobeys this order, she is told that she will no longer be allowed back to her world, itself another sacrifice because she wishes to go escape to another world. Finally, in her last trial she is ordered to sacrifice her own brother, an order which she disobeys and instead sacrifices herself for, thus allowing her to escape. In all three trials she was ordered to do something, and at some point during every trial she disobey an order and had to sacrifice something.