7 Paragraph Analytical Paper- Pan’s Labyrinth

Michelle Soriano

7 Paragraph Analytical Paper

Pan’s Labyrinth takes place in Spain during 1944. A young girl story-reading girl is forced into a new lifestyle. Her mother and herself are moving to live with their new army officer father, but finds herself into a new daydream world.

The movie starts with a girl names Ofeila and her mother in a car moving into their new home. Her mother is pregnant and Ofeila is trying to help her mother as the car motion is making her mother feel even sicker. As they arrive to their new home, their new army family and their new male figure in their lives greet them. The mother is escorted in a wheelchair into the house; Ofeila is shy and walks out of the car holding her fantasy books.

It is post Civil War in Spain, 1944, their new male figure is in charge and is in control of medicine and food distribution to the people. As Ofelia is getting to know her new home, she sees a large insect that reminds her of something she once saw in one of her storybooks. She follows it towards the labyrinth, where she is stopped by Mercedes, who is a spy for the rebels and is one of the maids in the house. Later that night she is visited by the insect, which becomes a fairy. It leads her into the labyrinth where she meets the faun, who believes that she is the Princess Moanna, the daughter to the king of the underworld, who left because she was curious of the world above, the sunlight blinded her and erased her memory.

The faun gives Ofelia three tasks to complete before the full moon to make sure that her essence is intact. Her first task is to get a key from the belly of a giant toad, she succeeds and brings it back to the faun. She tells the faun she is worried about her mothers condition, he gives to her a root of plant which starts to make her mother feel better instantly. 

Her second task is to get an ornate dagger from the lair of the Pale Man, who is a child-eating monster who sits alone in front of a feast of food. Ofeila is warned by the faun to not eat anything off the table, she is accompanied by three fairy guides to help her retrieve the dagger. Although she was warned and the fairies tried to stop her, she eats two grapes and awakens the monster. He chases after her and eats two of the fairies, she luckily escapes, but when she brings the bad news back to the faun, he refuses to forgive her and doesn’t give her the third task.

Ofeila’s new stepfather, Vidal, is becoming more and more angrier and crazy and is killing many of his men, including the doctor. On a day that Ofeila is taking care of the root the faun gave her, Vidal sees the root, takes it from her and kills it by throwing it into the fire. Her mother immediately starts to feel horrible and starts going into labor. She gives birth to her new son, but dies after. The faun returns to give Ofeila one last chance, he last challenge is to get new baby brother and bring him into the labyrinth. She steals her brother from Vidal and he chases after her, she makes it into the labyrinth where the faun is waiting for them. He tells Ofeila that he needs the blood of an innocent soul to open the portal to the underworld. Refusing to give up her brother, Vidal catches up to her and takes the brother back and shoots Ofeila and walks away.  

Vidal walks out of the Labyrinth and is surrounded by the rebels, he hands over the baby because he knows he is going to be killed, he asks Mercedes to tell his son what time his father was killed, she cuts him off and says his son will never know of him. She walks away and goes into the labyrinth to go find Ofeila. She walks in to see that she is dead and her body is dripping blood. Ofeila is now in the underworld, reunited with her mother and father and the faun. She has proven to be the princess and is now reunited to her family.

One concept that was used in this film was form and content. The form of the movie was expressed in many ways. The way Ofeila was show in the movie to fight with her mother and father. Also how Ofeila has to face the three challenges that are presented to her. The content of the movie is that her small traces of her on Earth are only visible to those who are looking or know where to look.

This movie has received reviews from many newspapers and magazines such as the Rolling Stones.  An article by Peter Travers, he mentions that the movie is for every one of all ages, as long as they are into the gothic twists that scare them senseless. He compares this movie to the director’s previous works such as, The Devil’s Backbone, he says that he prepares you for the impact of watching harsh reality and harsher fantasy bleed into each other. Peter makes an excellent point because in this movie, the entire story is very gothic style, the lighting is dark and the story is even darker. Barry Spector on the other hand wrote an article titled Sacrifice of the Children in Pan’s Labyrinth. In his article he focuses on the movies ties with ancient Greek mythology. He talks about the myths of Ouranos and Chronos who are now the two symbolic of fatherhood.

I didn’t really like this film because I’m not a huge fan of the gothic style, whether it’s the art or films I don’t like it. Also I don’t like movies that deal with the past and history. I like movies that are in the current time era or in the future. When we first started watching the movie, I thought the movie was going to take place in present time Spain and got excited but when I found out that the movie was in the past, I lost interest in it. 

WORK CITED

Spector, Barry. "Sacrifice of the Children in Pan's Labyrinth." Jung Journal:Culture&Psyche (2009): 1-2. JSTOR. Web. 20 Oct. 2012. http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.1525/jung.2009.3.3.81?searchUrl=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3DPan%2527s%2BLabyrinth%26acc%3Doff%26wc%3Don&Search=yes&uid=3739808&uid=2129&uid=2134&uid=2&uid=70&uid=4&uid=3739256&sid=21101299038861>.

 Travers, Peter. “ Pan’s Labyrinth.” December 29, 2006. http://www.rollingstone.com/movies/reviews/pans-labyrinth-20061229.

CHECKLIST FOR PLAGIARISM

1) ( x) I have not handed in this assignment for any other class. 2) (x ) If I reused any information from other papers I have written for other classes, I clearly

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indentation and citation within the text. 4) (x ) I have not padded the bibliography. I have used all sources cited in the bibliography in the

text of the paper. 5) (x ) I have cited in the bibliography only the pages I personally read. 6) ( x) I have used direct quotations only in cases where it could not be stated in another way. I

cited the source within the paper and in the bibliography. 7) ( x) I did not so over-use direct quotations that the paper lacks interpretation or originality. 8) ( x) I checked yes on steps 1-7 and therefore have been fully transparent about the research

and ideas used in my paper.

Name_________Michelle Soriano______________________________ Date___________________________