Pan's Labyrinth is a 2006 Spanish film directed by Guillermo del Toro, set in 1944 Spain after the civil war. It follows Ofelia, a young girl who encounters a faun that guides her on a quest through a fantastical labyrinth. The film contrasts Ofelia's magical world with the harsh reality overseen by her fascist stepfather Captain Vidal. Del Toro uses vivid colors and symbols to distinguish the two worlds and comment on themes of femininity, masculinity, and the struggle between good and evil.

1. Pan’s Labyrinth is a Spanish film that was released in 2006 and directed by Mexican director
Guillermo del Toro. Del Toro is known for these kinds of films, to not shy away from showing
the gore and brutality of real and fantastical worlds and the actions of people. They could
include villains such as Nazi’s, as was the case with Pan’s Labyrinth where the main villain is
portrayed by Captain Vidal, a fascist general of the Spanish army. Del Toro admitted to being
able to lucid dream as a child. Lucid dreaming is the process where a person is aware that
they are dreaming and can control the narrative of their dream. He said that he was often
guided by a faun in his dreams, like the character in Pan’s Labyrinth, which guides the main
character Ofelia through her quest. The filmitself is set in 1944’s Spain, after the Spanish
Civil War and into Franco’s dictatorship. After gaining complete victory in the war, he’d
become the ruler with the most power in the history of Spain. However, the setting still
includes the rebels fighting to stay alive while the army tries to rustle them out, providing
the conflict in which Ofelia’s step-father is caught up with fighting in. With the fascists
having won the war, the country is divided in two with widespread poverty and Nazi like
concentration camps.
We are introduced to the main character Ofelia at the start, just after a dark prologue,
mentioning a tale that gives the whole story a potential deeper meaning, who is travelling
with her pregnant mother to go and stay with her step-father in an army base for the birth
of her half-brother. Her step-father is Captain Vidal, who represents the whole idea of
fascismin the film: cold, ruthless and letting no one stand in his way of eliminating the
rebels in the hills to secure Spain’s new government. By the end of the film, it is revealed
that the girl we saw in the very beginning is Ofelia dying after being shot by Vidal, which ties
into the themes of birth, rebirth and that she could be Moana from the tale we are told at
the beginning and whom the Faun referred to her as. The tale of the Blue Rose tells of a
flower that allows anyone who plucks a petal will become immortal but the path to it is full
of poisonous thorns, so no one dares to try and get to it. While that part shows as she tells
this story to her unborn brother, the colouring of the filmgoes dark with a higher contrast
between the two colours, making the red of the sky and blue of the rose stand out more.
The significance with this story is that it could be linked to the whole plot of Pan’s Labyrinth,
since Ofelia is tasked with dangerous quests and once passing them and dies, is reborn with
her parents to live eternally happy. By linking the plot to the story, viewers wonder even
more if everything fantastical is in fact real, or whether it is all part of her imagination based
off the stories and books she reads to cope with and understand what is happening in the
real world.
Regardless of which way the viewers interpret the story, Del Toro uses a method of
colouring the film to distinguish between the fantasy world and the norm. The world of
reality has a low contrast between the colours and is very naturalistic, though does often
have a bit of a blue tint to it. Blue throughout portrays to the viewer that this is the real
world and what everyone is seeing. Captain Vidal is almost always wearing something blue
and the tint to the screen is always more noticeable where he is present. The shots are
static too, not moving around a lot to show the order that Vidal is trying to impose upon
others. Blue is known symbolically for being deep, stable and intelligent, which is what Vidal
strives for. When Ofelia goes to her fantasy worlds go to a high contrast of reds, oranges

2. and yellows. Being so different to the blue, viewers can easily see the contrast between
these two worlds Ofelia travels between. Red has been used to symbolise adventure and
energy, but also violence and danger. Orange and yellow show happiness and energy that
doesn’t exist in the harsh reality of the army camp. Ofelia wears green right up until the end
of the film where she’s reborn. Green usually symbolises nature, healing and safety but in
the case of Pan’s Labyrinth, it is the transversal colour between the two realities. Since
Ofelia is constantly going back and forth between the two worlds, she wears green. The
faun is also green, since it appears in both the real and fantasy worlds. Her mother, Carmen,
wears green at the beginning of the film, but as she becomes more distant with Ofelia and
starts to side with Vidal against the fantastical world, her clothes become blue up until her
death. Only at the end do we see Ofelia in a colour other than green, after she is reborn into
the Labyrinth and dressed in reds, yellows and golds to show she has left the real world
behind. A rose on her dress ties back to the blue rose myth and that Ofelia has been able to
achieve an immortal life in the fantastical underworld as Moana did with her parents.
Another theme that is shown and represented throughout the whole film is the theme of
femininity. Spain has a patriarchal society and its attitudes towards family life. Even in the
21st century, only 50% of women work and men don’t get paternity leave because they are
supposed to be providing for the family. However, in Pan’s Labyrinth, Del Toro made sure
that the women appear stronger than the men in terms of mental strength. All the men,
even including Ofelia’s brother, have taken life at some point in the film whereas all the
women give or protect life. Even the doctor ends up being responsible for a character’s
death and Ofelia’s brother’s birth causes Carmen to die. Especially at the end where Ofelia
has the opportunity to sacrifice her baby brother to live in the labyrinth and chooses not to,
even though it meant failing her final task and ends up being shot and killed by Vidal. This
would be quite controversial for the Spanish audiences but a good way of showing that
women can be strong too. Items representing femininity are present throughout, such as
markings on the bed headboards that look like the shape of a womb and the tree that Ofelia
goes into to retrieve the key from the toad. This also ties in with the theme that Ofelia is
rejecting growing up, not wanting to have to deal with the responsibilities and suffering she
can see the adults going through. But Ofelia also gets something from everything
representing femininity in a parallel with the real and fantasy worlds; a key from the tree
the toad was in, the dagger from the Pale Man’s room and her brother from the bed her
mother slept in. However, items that have the opportunity to be harmful are designed to
represent the toxic masculinity Del Toro tried to push across as the implicit meaning. The
dagger and the Pale Man are designed to resemble the male anatomy, both of which pose a
threat to life, being Ofelia or her brother. This is used to enhance the theme of toxic
masculinity and femininity in a juxtaposition between the representations of each.
Masculinity in itself isn’t shown to be toxic as not all men in Spain are like this. Del Toro did
this to purely show that it is the abusive kind of masculinity that is common in Spain that
he’s trying to show is wrong.
Juxtapositions are a constant throughout the filmto accentuate the conflict in the world
Ofelia is fighting to grow up in. One is old vs young where Ofelia is against Vidal, disobeying
him to do what she feels is right even though she’ll have been told to obey adults. She is the

3. same with the Faun when he shows similarities to Vidal in asking her to sacrifice her baby
brother. As with lots of films, especially in this style there is the theme of good vs evil with
Ofelia being the good and the side of life opposed to Vidal who aims to kill all of the
remaining rebels and the two being in constant conflict throughout the film. With their
conflicting personalities references other juxtapositions of femininity, masculinity and the
innocence of youth vs the supposed maturity of older people. Connected to the
contradicting themes of obedience vs disobedience, Ofelia shows that following her own
beliefs of what is right is better than following blindly as with what Vidal seeks. The Faun
expects a Vidal like obedience at the end, to be disobeyed by Ofelia too, suggesting she is a
lot more mature than the other characters think she is.
1. Del Toro, G. (2006) Pan’s Labyrinth
2. Anon (accessed 2018) Color Meaning (http://www.color-wheel-pro.com/color-
meaning.html)
3. Cohut, M. (2018). Lucid dreaming: Controlling the stories of sleep.Available:
https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/323077.php. Last accessed 12th Jan
2019
4. Payne, S. (1987). Semi-Fascism- The New State of 1939. In: Payne, S The Franco
Regime 1936-1975. United States: Library of Congress. 231.
5. Notes taken at lectures