The labyrinth of the faun, a pillar in fantasy
Faun’s labyrinth is one of those films that will continue to be a pillar in the fantasy genre. Located at the time of war, reality exposes through the eyes of a child. We are in 1944, in the civil post -war in Spain. The rebels continue to fight in the mountains against the Falangista troops. A girl, who is called Ofelia, travels with her pregnant and sick mother, Carmen Vidal, to the country to meet live with her stepfather, a sadistic and cruel captain. As the night arrives, she meets a fairy and follows her to a pit in the center of a maze, in which she meets a faun and ends up learning that she is a princess of an underground kingdom. She also tells her that her father is waiting for her, but she must first fulfill three horrifying, difficult and dangerous tasks. In the same moments, she becomes a friend of a servant named Mercedes, who is a sister of one of the rebels and currently supports that group. In a dark, rough and violent world, Ofelia lives the magical world of her trying to survive her tasks and see her and king’s father again. This film demonstrates the danger in each world and how they are always present within each other. Within his movie, the bull talks about the role of three: three doors, three rules, three fairies, three thrones . They are the seemingly simpler stories that can transform you more. The genius of the labyrinth of the faun lives in the elegant construction of his fable . In the film, Guillermo del Toro uses two allegorical villains, one is a totalitarian captain and the other a mythical monster, to show the public the terrifying nature of fascism and its willingness to use violence as a tool to destroy free will, and Also explore how the genre becomes part of the identity of the livelihood of some characters.
From 1936 to 1939, Spain saw the most brutal civil war in its history. Often considered as a struggle between democracy and fascism, the right -wing nationalists of General Francisco Franco finally triumphed over the democratic Second Spanish Republic. During the next 36 years, Franco ruled Spain in the hope of turning the country into a totalitarian state such as Hitler’s Germany or Mussolini’s Italy. The film explores elements of fascism through its history and characters, but explore how all this trip, through the character of Ofelia, deepens our thoughts about its role as a woman and how its elections to which the civil war refrained from giving. Her elections and her ideas, by canceling the rules that she was also condemned, led to her the sense of escapism to this world of immortality and change, but also a reflection of how broken her world is real. The faun labyrinth is a dark fantasy film that tells the story of a young woman named Ophelia and her Fairy Tale self-discovery trip. The film is built within two parallel worlds: reality and fantasy. It is through the interaction of these two worlds and the characters that inhabit them that the bull creates a modern perspective of Franco’s fascist regime. Captain Vidal, the stepfather of Ofelia, is the literal representative of the real life of fascist ideology. In fact, he serves as the incarnation of Franco himself. Captain Vidal is a man obsessed with the rules and regiment: the handshake label, cleaning his boots and the maintenance of his stopwatch. Vidal’s obsessions refer to Franco’s own authoritarianism and the totalitarian character of his regime.
As the narrative progresses, Captain Vidal becomes a frustrated and antagonistic villain for the innocent Ofelia, who hopes to escape the surrounding repression. Like Franco’s regime, Captain Vidal controls those around him through fear and violence instead of compassion. If Captain Vidal is the ‘monster’ of the real world, then the fantastic ‘pale man’ is the interior grotesque monster of Vidal that comes alive. They present us to Pale Man during the second task of Ofelia in the fauno labyrinth. When Ofelia is first with the pale man, she is placed at the head of a large dining table covered with food. This image mimics the previous scene in which Captain Vidal organizes a dinner. Like the pale man, Vidal is sitting at the head of the table. By placing two images that are visually echoed in such a fast succession, the bull emphasizes a link between Captain Vidal and the pale man. In addition to the visual signals provided by Del Toro, the connection between the two villains solidifies even more for their cruel actions. In the real world dinner, Vidal shortly shortly the meaningless talk surrounding the dinner table. The need for the order of pale man manifests itself as real violence; When Ofelia eats two grapes of the table, the pale man brutally bites the heads of two fairies. Like a totalitarian ruler, the pale man is an almighty entity that governs with fear and violence, punishing any act of challenge or freedom. As the film advances and Vidal’s character develops, it becomes evident that he is also the incarnation of the brutality of the time. With acts of rapid violence, Vidal crushes anyone who he perceives as remotely resistant or disobedient. We are exposed to the epitome of the ruthless nature of him when he brutally murders two rabbit hunter farmers as they advocate his mercy and profess his innocence to the participation of any type of realistic resistance. After finding rabbits in the farmer’s bag, the Vi Vidal shows no remorse for the atrocious and unjustified murders.
Violence is graphic and hyperbolic, causing a reaction of horror and disgust. Instead of creating a show of violence, the bull causes a fierce emotional revolt against screen images. The qualities of unbridled oppression that Vidal embodies are not limited to the human world, but also extend to the labyrinth. The antagonist is reflected in the world of the fantastic by the monsters that inhabit. The ‘pale man’ is a grotesque symbol of Vidal’s evil and, in turn, the evils of fascism and domination. Inherently evil and without regrets, the pale man eats the blood of the innocents despite the extravagant banquet at the table before him. Similarly, Vidal eats as a king and enjoys luxuries like tobacco, even when he cuts rations and forces people to go hungry. Both are scenarios where evil characters cause suffering unnecessarily and absorb the vitality of others. The pale man has no eyes in his head, while the captain is blind to his own monstrosity and both are indifferent to innocent life. Any doubt of any connection between Vidal and Pale Man’s qualities evaporates when comparing the geometry of their respective kitchens. . As the bull reveals in the audio comment, they are the same, ‘a long rectangle with a chimney on the back and the monster in the head of the table’
The film explores another theme throughout the film: the rise of the female gender. Del Toro has said that he thinks of the faun labyrinth as a spiritual precursor of his previous film, The Devil ’S Backbone . And that is probably true: both are adventures in women’s adulthood. The maze of bread is full of female sexual images and symbolisms that suggest that Ophelia’s story is a trip through puberty, menstruation and, ultimately, childbirth. And it is also a story that establishes a direct correlation between a patriarchal stepfather and authoritarianism: by disobeying Vidal, Ofelia rejects both a dominant male presence and an unpleasant political spirit. The search for Ofelia is feminine. She has faced a male world of war and tyranny … which is also reflected in her fantasy tasks. The labyrinth of the faun is a testimony of the virtues of cinematographic escapism, and remains a powerful argument for the immortality of cinema as a medium. Find her moments of comfort not in fantasy, but in goodness. Carmen’s maternal love is complemented by the thorough compassion of Mercedes, the ingenious and secret house of Vidal keys. The film is located directly next to the rebel guerrillas dispersed by the forest that surrounds the property of the captain, and many of the most hopeful moments come from portraits of his heroic acts. However, it is the power of solidarity that is maintained between Ofelia, Carmen and Mercedes against the toxic and dominant masculinity of Vidal that drives the emotional core of the Labyrinth of bread, and the contrast between the two forces pays narrative dividends. Occasionally, from the point of view of Ofelia to follow Vidal in innumerable adventures, from assaults to the rebels to quiet times of shaving alone, of the bull uses these intense portraits to highlight the chaotic selfishness driven by anger in the heart of the captain. He paints Ofelia and Vidal as moral opposites, racing the way to a aforementioned result in the first picture of the film. Mercedes receives the same narrative treatment, holding her own vital secondary plot for the duration of the film. Her ability to undermine the authority for the good of doing good is juxtaposed with the catering of the captain’s security that her gender disables her to make fun of him, words that will later be delivered to him in a tray. The most emotional moments of the film come from the interactions between Mercedes and Ofelia, who saw the young woman displaced as a bird who needs a wing . The theme of the soundtrack is more raw when it occurs in the soft voice itself of the housekeeper, which summarizes the tender safety of her relationship with our trapped heroin. When exploring the ideology behind the question of gender, we can explore the violent scene between Mercedes and Vidal. In this scene, the bull uses specific micro elements to build specific gender representations. Micro elements, including sound, cinematography, Mies-en-Scène and edition, are used to build the dominant nature of men and, possibly, the ‘passive’ nature of women. The sound is used subtle, but intelligently along the scene to show and juxtapose how genres are represented throughout the film.
Throughout the beginning of the scene, there is a lack of non -diegetic sound. Del Toro has done this to allow the audience to see the true emotions of the characters, and thus the audience can completely understand the binary opposition that we see that takes place inside the scene. As the scene advances and Vidal lifts its hammer, an intense sound effect is reproduced to increase tension. This intense sound makes the audience feel uncomfortable and realizes that Mercedes is in trouble, since she looks weaker. This idea that the woman is the weakest of the sexes is prominent throughout the film, and that women are represented as weaker and subordinate to men. This uncomfortable feeling that the sound effect creates for the audience, directly represents how threatened and uncomfortable women feel throughout the cinema and during this time, due to patriarchal society. In addition, the representation of women who look as weakest and subordinate is also shown through sound, through the sound of the rope that binds to Mercedes. The diegetic sound of the tied rope emphasizes how restricted it is and is limited in their movements, and this is directly related to the way women are represented in the film; They are only within the limits of what men allow them to do. Mise-en-Scène is very influential during the scene in which Mercedes attacks Vidal by showing gender representations throughout the film. Mercedes’s hidden knife is very dominant in the scene by showing and contrasting gender identities. When Mercedes hides the knife throughout the film, she symbolizes the idea that women have to hide their true identities, since they are subordinated to men. The revelation of the knife in the scene directly represents the final ‘outburst’ of the true self of Mercedes; She no longer hides her anger towards Vidal and the patriarchal society that dominated during the Spanish Civil War of the forties. The revelation of the knife and the outburst of ‘anger’ is as important as throughout the film, women are lower than men. This seems especially true for Mercedes, since we see it in the ‘call and call’ of Vidal, so this breakdown of oppression really means the rupture of female weakness throughout the film. In addition, the dull color palette used is to create an atmosphere of premonition, notifying the audience that an unpleasant event will occur and even more emphasizes the weakness of both positions at different points during the scene.
Cinematography is another key element manipulated by Del Toro to build gender representations. The camera angles are especially notable inside the scene by demonstrating the exchange of power that takes place during the scene. At the beginning of the scene, when there is a low angle shot in Mercedes and a high -angle shot in Vidal, it really shows the imbalance of power between the two characters during this time, and the angles of the camera emulate the ‘weakest’ and ‘the dominant sex. The audience feels intimidated by Vidal, and in this way the audience can empathize with Mercedes and with all women in the film, since this represents them in a weaker way and is at the mercy of men. However, as the scene progresses and Mercedes begins to gain power of the situation once she reveals her knife, the camera begins to bow up, and we, when the audience sees Mercedes as the dominant figure in the situation. The binary opposition that takes place juxtaposes the general representation of genres in the film; The woman is now seen as dominant, and the man as weak. The public now sees women represented as strong and brave, and men are now not as strong as they once believed.
The assembly also plays an important role in the definition of gender representations. Throughout the scene, the cuts seem to be increasingly short. When moving from the ‘long’ cuts to the ‘shorts’, you can see that this represents Mercedes who is finally leaving the cycle that she and her female counterparts have been suffering. Therefore, you can see that the shots represent her heartbeat, as she gets angry and more passionate, her heart accelerates, inevitably breaking the cycle of her oppression. As the danger is more imminent and becomes the prominent characteristic of the scene, fast shots can represent the energy from Mercedes, since she is no longer submissive to Vidal at this time. Finally, it is the ‘liberation’ of her of Vidal’s reigns and, possibly, all the women of all men. The editing techniques used represent that females are finally separating from men control. In general, at the beginning of the scene, gender representations produced by the key elements of the film represented women as submissive to men and weaker than they. Along with this, men were represented as dominant and with authority over women. However, as the scene advanced and a binary opposition was produced, men were represented so that they were not as strong and powerful as it seemed, and women were represented to have some ‘life’ and ‘character’ in They, and to have their own needs and emotions, instead of acting in the way they thought it would please men and keep them ‘safe’.
If Captain Vidal and the pale man come to represent the fascist government, Ofelia serves as a substitute for the Spanish nation and those who suffered at the hands of Franco’s regime. Like the members of the Spanish resistance ofelia, it faces challenges that are dangerous, challenging and highlight their impotence against danger. She has become the face of feminism and how civil war has affected the independence of women and has demonstrated through her a slow recovery of it. The elections and rules of her are based on her contrast with the free will that she is trying to get the war again. And immortality, not only touching her dream of a world without suffering, but also connecting with her stepfather, who pursues eternal life through the violence and suffering she has put on others. Although Ofelia finally becomes another victim at the hands of Captain Vidal, she becomes a martyr for the future generation (in this case, speaking of her little brother) she grows in the hands of resistance.
At the end of the film, the Toro’s position on Franco’s leadership becomes evident: it was a regime that depended on unnecessary violence and fear of keeping its citizens under control . Through the use of allegorical villains of real and fantastic life, Del Toro shows the public how Franco’s Spain crushed the innocence, imagination and freedom of the Spanish nation. More than simple fantasy flights, the power of the labyrinth becomes too real when an unnamed faun dumps the young woman with the promise of royalty in another world. For the most part from the perspective of Ofelia, the labyrinth of the faun is a film of narrative layers, which beautifully travels from the fantastic adventures of the protagonist to scenes of brutal violence.
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