Pan's Labyrinth

Wow! Pan's Labyrinth was certainly one of the oddest movies I have ever seen in my life, but it was an excellent movie. Plus, it’s a foreign movie and I rarely like these kinds of movie! But, Del Toro did really great and I can see that he worked so hard on this movie. So, I can see why he said the movie nearly killed him and he lost forty five pounds of fat from making the movie. He wanted people to see the meanings behind the scenes and he wanted to express his meanings of certain things that were shown in the movie. You can have so many different meanings in a scene and nobody’s wrong. He’s very creative and sly in some ways. Also, he completely broke the ‘golden film rules’ in Pan’s Labyrinth such as having a unfortunate ending in a fantasy-like movie or having the mood of lights remaining the same for the rest of the movie. Basically, Pan’s Labyrinth is all about disobedience.
I thought the movie was very deep when you try to analyze it in pieces. For instance, Del Toro showed religious parallels in this movie, like in the ending, when Ofelia the main character died and then rised again in her kingdom as an immortal being just like Jesus did. Jesus also died and was reborn again as an immortal. Also, the monster with eyes on his hands also depicts the crucifixion of Jesus and his hands. The setting of Pan’s Labyrinth was in Spain and Spain’s official language is Catholic. So, Del Toro perhaps used these religious parallels in the movie for that purpose and to show his perspective of it.
He also showed many forms of obedience in this movie, theatrical and social. In theatrical sense, Pan’s Labyrinth was a fairy tale, yet it’s very dark and gloomy. There were no happy endings in this movie like fairy tales normally have. The fairies were not bright at all and ate like savages. In normal fairy tales, you always see bright fairies and they’re clean. Also, they’re there to help while the fairies in the movie lied to Ofelia, the protagonist of this movie. The lights never changed at all from the beginning to the end because the mood remained the same. In normal movies, you normally see the lights change when the mood of the movie changes. But in this movie, it was always dark and the rain never stopped.
Now, in a sense of society, there are so many meanings of disobedience because it completely depends on a person’s experience and values he or she holds. The Faun told Ofelia to obey him all the time and would be rewarded if she accordingly does so. However, when the Faun told her he would need the blood of an innocent, he meant her brother. If she obeys him, she would have her wish. In disobedience, she refused to kill her own brother and chose him over her desire to escape the life she lives in. Thus, she disobeyed because it was the right thing to do so. I believe Del Toro is trying to say that disobedience is not always wrong, but it is sometimes a right thing to do in certain situations.
Well, it was very interesting when I had to analyze the movie, instead of just watching the whole movie. I really realized there were hidden meanings behind Pan’s Labyrinth and I probably won’t recognize it if I was merely watching the movie like I normally do.