History Film / PansLabyrinth

Ofelia and her mother are taken to a villa in the mountains near an old labyrinth (the titular Faun'a) to be near Captain Vidal for the birth while he hunts down rebels. Ofelia is quickly [[BrokenMasquerade taken into]] a ChangelingFantasy about how she is [[RagsToRoyalty secretly a princess]] of the underworld fairy kingdom, lost to humanity for many ages. The labyrinth was one of many made by her father, the King of the Underworld, as gateways in the hope she would return. As [[MagicalGirlQueenlinessTest she undergoes trials to prove her soul is uncorrupted]] by [[HumansAreBastards living among humans]], so do the rebels, her mother, and her nursemaid and only friend Mercedes.

* AccidentalHero: Ofelia proves to be this in the climax. [[spoiler:By leading Vidal into the labyrinth, she gives the rebels time to turn the tide against his men and earn a victory. Mercedes is still sobbing over Ofelia's body when she enters the labyrinth, feeling that her sacrifice wasn't worth it]].

* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler:Ofelia dies from her wounds on Earth but is reunited with her true parents of the Underworld. It's also implied her infant half-brother will grow up safe with Mercedes and the rebels.]] To a lesser extent, in the novelization [[spoiler:the rebellion will ultimately fail but Spain will free itself from fascism within a few decades]].
* BigDamnHeroes: [[spoiler:The rebels save Mercedes from the Captain's henchmen right before they're going to [[FateWorseThanDeath take her back]] and inflict ColdBloodedTorture on her.]]

* BulletproofHumanShield: Averted, when Vidal turns his gun on the senior hunter, who's being restrained by a policeman. The policeman sees what's about to happen, and quickly changes his position to holding the man at the side, rather than directly behind him as the man's body would most likely have not protected him from Vidal's close range gunshot.

* CentralTheme: Moral choice and disobedience. All of the characters face the choice of whether to obey Captain Vidal and the evil government he represents, or risk everything by resisting. Ofelia disobeys her mother by going deeper into the world of magic, and goes against Captain Vidal by keeping Mercedes' secret, but eventually she must also decide whether to obey the Faun. [[spoiler: By refusing to sacrifice her brother as the last task, she passes the Faun's SecretTestOfCharacter and gets her final reward]].

** Mercedes hides a knife in her dress after cutting some potatoes in the kitchen. Later, [[spoiler:when Captain Vidal interrogates her, she uses it to cut her ropes and seriously wound him]].
** The sedative the doctor leaves on Ofelia's mother's bedside. [[spoiler:Ofelia takes it and drugs Captain Vidal's liquor glass when she goes to get her brother]].
** The chalk that the Faun gives Ofelia to make a door into the chamber of the Pale Man. She uses it again to [[spoiler:get into Captain Vidal's room]].

* DarkIsNotEvil: The various fairy creatures are certainly frightening, but may not be malevolent. It's humans you should watch out for.
* DarkReprise: A dark''er'' reprise -- Mercedes' [[IronicNurseryTune wordless lullaby]] to Ofelia, both while she's worrying about her mother and [[spoiler:[[DiedInYourArmsTonight while she lies dying.]]]]

* DiedHappilyEverAfter: [[spoiler: As Ofelia dies from being shot, her blood drips down onto the Faun's portal. To the crying Mercedes it seems as though Ofelia has merely died a tragic death, but Ofelia perceives herself transported away from the CrapsackWorld she used to inhabit and into the throne room of her fairy tale kingdom. There her real father the king praises her for passing the Faun's secret test of character, and invites her to take her rightful place as princess at her parents' side. She passes on smiling]].

** Ofelia claims her father was a deceased tailor. The Faun, however, tells her that her real father is king of the underworld and has been waiting for her to return. [[spoiler:Ofelia meets him when she goes to the throne room of her kingdom in the end]].

* DoomedMoralVictor: [[spoiler:Ofelia]], paralleling the Republican side in the actual UsefulNotes/SpanishCivilWar. [[spoiler:She dies for doing the right thing instead of what she was told, and this small rebel victory cannot last when Franco is destined to rule for decades more, but they have proved themselves more morally courageous than their oppressors, and someday because of people like them Spain will be free again. In the non-magical plot, Dr. Ferreiro [[InvokedTrope tells]] Mercedes and Pedro outright that their cause is lost, but they nevertheless continue their struggle.]]

* TheDyingWalk: [[spoiler:Doctor Ferreiro begins walking away from the room where he gave a MercyKill to Vidal's torture victim and revealed himself as TheMole. Vidal shoots the doctor in the back as he's walking, and the doctor continues walking, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhSjnG5pMOY but only for a few more steps]]... Ofelia dies in the same vein, except she's shot in the chest rather than the back.]]

* EvilCannotComprehendGood: The film's TagLine states: "Innocence has a power evil cannot comprehend." Which is presumably why, at the end of the movie, [[spoiler:Vidal can't see the Faun standing right in front of him]]. The novelization goes further when he doesn't even seem to [[spoiler:question why Ofelia took his son into the labyrinth and not into the woods where the rebels were waiting. It never occurs to him that she really wanted to protect her little brother from monsters like him]].
** After Dr. Ferreiro [[spoiler:{{Mercy Kill}}s Tarta even though Vidal wanted him kept alive]], Vidal is clearly angry, but he also looks and sounds genuinely confused and uncomprehending. He truly doesn't understand why someone would disobey a direct order when they know perfectly well that they will suffer terrible consequences for it.

* FaceDeathWithDignity: [[spoiler:By the time Vidal pieces together that the good Dr. Ferreiro is a collaborator with the doomed rebel cause, Ferreiro has already [[MercyKill euthanised]] the stuttering rebel captive to spare him any further pain at Vidal's hands. He gives the fascist thug a concise TheReasonYouSuckSpeech and then calmly walks outside knowing Vidal is going to follow him out and shoot him. Much later in the film, Vidal himself... [[DefiedTrope tries this, but it doesn't work]].]]

* FantasyForbiddingFather: Fantasy Forbidding Parent. Ofelia is chided for reading too many fairy stories when she's supposed to have outgrown them. Her stepfather is outright hateful of them, while her mother just considers it childish, [[spoiler:but when she throws the mandrake into the fire as proof that it's just superstition, the plant's pain kills her]].

* ForbiddenFruit: The grapes. Ofelia is not allowed to eat anything, but the food on Pale Man's table look delicious, especially the grapes.
* ForcedToWatch: Mercedes doesn't arrive in time [[spoiler:to treat Ofelia's gunshot, and besides which the doctor who could have saved her has been executed. All she can do is sing to the girl in her last moments, to offer her some comfort]].

** Mercedes' [[BadassBoast badass boast]] to Vidal includes her telling him not to harm Ofelia. [[spoiler:Vidal murders Ofelia in cold blood at the end of the film, and he's then quickly killed in revenge.]]

** In the Pale Man's chamber, there are three locks that Ofelia can use the key from the first task on. The fairies insist on the center lock, but Ofelia tries it and finds no give, so she decides to try the lock on the left instead and succeeds. She also defies the nagging of the fairies and the Faun's stated rule and eats grapes from the table, [[spoiler:proving that she can question authority and think independently enough to pass the final test.]]

* GoodAllAlong: In the climax, the Faun demands [[spoiler:that Ofelia hand over her baby brother so that he can cut him a little to open the portal to the Underworld]]. Ofelia [[spoiler:refuses]]. It turns out that [[spoiler:the Faun was testing her, and he's proud that she refused when they reunite in the Underworld. Ofelia gives him a relieved smile]].

* GrowingUpSucks: Ofelia thinks so, especially if it means letting go of her fairy stories. After seeing the agony her pregnant mother is in, Ofelia tells Mercedes that she doesn't want to be old enough to have children of her own. The Faun also states that as she grows older, her belief in the Underworld will fade, and the Underworld itself would vanish as well.

** The doctor shows mercy and euthanizes the captured rebel, even though he surely knows it will cost his own life.
** [[spoiler:Ofelia refuses to let the Faun use her baby brother's blood for the sacrifice, even though it means giving up the life of an immortal princess. As soon as Captain Vidal catches up to her, he shoots her]].
* HeWhoFightsMonsters: Defied by Ofelia. She hates her stepfather and all he represents, including how he tortures people and let her mother [[spoiler:die]]. Even so, [[spoiler:she refuses to give her little brother to the Faun because the Faun wants to cut his skin to get blood to open the portal. He's the only family she has left, and she doesn't trust what "a little" blood means]].
* HumanoidAbomination: The Pale Man has grown emaciated while trapped in the netherworld, and his humanity has withered away, leaving him a grotesque monster who only looks like a man in terms of general silhouette. Great rolls of loose skin sag from his bony frame, his face has no lips or eyes, and the eyeballs that sit before him on a plate are inserted into sockets in the palms of his hands. Since he cannot eat the food before him, his only sustenance is the flesh and blood of innocent children.

* IgnoredEpiphany: Vidal gets one when he walks into the labyrinth and sees Ofelia protectively holding her brother, his son. She looks like an innocent child talking to the air. He even has a moment of looking at her with pity. [[spoiler:Though he's gentle as he takes the baby from her arms, he still shoots her as she looks at him and pleads with one "no" to not hurt her brother]].

* InkblotTest: The FiveSecondForeshadowing towards [[spoiler:Carmen's pregnancy hemorrhage]] as Ofelia's book inks the shape of a bleeding uterus, drenching the pages in red.
* InvertedTrope: According to WordOfGod, in this movie, set in Francoist Spain, it's courageous ''dis''obedience, rather than blind obedience, that is the true virtue. This is nearly the opposite of pretty much any normal fairy-tale. Dr. Ferreiro gets a [[TheReasonYouSuckSpeech Reason You Suck]] line aimed at Vidal to this effect.

** The scene with two farmers who were just hunting rabbits and a bottle of wine -- Vidal viciously beats the son with it, and then shoots the desperate father and finishes off the son with a shot. This scene single-handedly establishes Captain Vidal as psychopathic sadist.
** Vidal doesn't let up in the climax. He corners Ofelia who is carrying his son in the labyrinth. She's staring into the air and talking about "I would," seemingly alone and defenseless. There's a moment of pity on his face as he takes the baby from her and Ofelia tells him, "no". [[spoiler:Then he shoots her. Even ''he'' realizes he went too far when he comes out and the rebels have cornered him]].
* KillHimAlready: Mercedes should probably have [[spoiler:killed Vidal when she had him at her mercy to avert the BittersweetEnding. However, according to WordOfGod: Mercedes' knife was intended to be too small to inflict serious damage on as formidable an opponent as Captain Vidal. On a symbolic level, such a fearsome monster as Captain Vidal needed something equally fearsome to finish him off. Such is the nature of a fairy tale...]]

* LivingLabyrinth: The labyrinth seems to have a mind of its own and to change shape, as when it [[spoiler:opens a shortcut to Ofelia while closing before Captain Vidal]].

** The scene when [[spoiler:Mercedes breaks free from Vidal and attacks him with a knife she had concealed]]. Up until that point [[spoiler:she]] was addressing [[spoiler:him]] in the formal form ("usted"), but here changes to the informal form ("tú"), which at the time was considered a HUGE disrespect to someone of higher rank. Which of course, makes the ensuing scene all the more cathartic!

* MagicalAbortion: The novelization says that titular maze was designed by a witch whose main job was getting rid of unwanted pregnancies that the mothers couldn't afford.
* TheMagicGoesAway: The Labyrinth is one of the last (if not ''the'' last) of the portals the King of the Underground Realm opened for his daughter to return home through. [[spoiler:When Ofelia messes up her second task, the Faun proclaims that the magical world will fade along with her eventual death.]] However, by the end of the film, [[spoiler:it is said that the Princess left traces of her existence in places where people could find them if they looked carefully]].

* MatureWorkChildProtagonists: The film is a dark fantasy about a little Spanish girl searching for magical medicines for her ailing, pregnant mother in the brutal years of Franco's regime, where the Falangists were still hunting down the Spanish Maquis.
* MauveShirt: Garcés and Serrano are the biggest examples. Others, like [[AnArmAndALeg Frenchie]], the stuttering rebel, the other police captain and the troop medic, either recur or are given slight characterization against the masses. They all die in the course of the movie.

* MilkyWhiteEyes: The Faun appears to be aged and blind when he first appears, but grows more youthful in appearance as the film progresses.
* MoralityPet: The baby is this for Vidal. For all of his talks of wanting a son, he is gentle with the newborn when holding him. [[spoiler:Mercedes still says he is an evil man and the baby will never know his name]].

* {{Mundanger}}: Captain Vidal is a fascist officer with no relation to the magical elements of the setting, which he doesn't even believe in. And yet, Vidal could be considered a more terrifying monster than any of the actual monsters seen, lacking so much in compassion and empathy that he doesn't hesitate to [[spoiler:kill his very young step-daughter for trying to run away with her baby brother.]]

** After this event, Ofelia begs Mercedes to [[spoiler:take her into the woods, away from Vidal's house. Unfortunately, Vidal was following them and assumes Ofelia was recruited to the resistance. He locks them both up and plans to kill Ofelia when Mercedes makes her getaway]].
* NiceJobFixingItVillain: [[spoiler: After Ofelia refuses to let her innocent newborn brother's blood to be spilled for her final test, she's shot by Vidal. As she lies dying, the blood from her wounds fulfills the test's requirements and she's finally allowed to reunite with her parents in the underworld.]]

* NoOneGetsLeftBehind: In the novelization, Ofelia brings her brother to the labyrinth with this attitude. Even though the Faun told her to get the baby, [[spoiler:Ofelia promises him that they'll both be safe once they are in the Underworld]]. This is one of the reasons she refuses to [[spoiler:let the Faun cut her brother to open the portal because she thought her brother was coming with her]].

* OurOgresAreHungrier: Del Toro says that the Pale Man is his conception of the classic, child eating ogre of fairy tales.

* PracticalEffects: The Faun is played by actor Creator/DougJones in a [[PeopleInRubberSuits physical suit]] rather than via an expensive CGI version; Jones' lower legs and feet were removed in post production. The suit took five hours a day to put on but the convincing result was worth the effort.

* PrincessProtagonist: The Faun tells Ofelia that she is really princess Moanna of the underworld and that her father sent him to test and guide her so she can go back home. Ofelia goes to great lengths to prove herself worthy of being a princess, and in the epilogue [[spoiler:we're told that she ruled wisely and was loved by her people]].

* RayOfHopeEnding: For those that know Spanish history, the republican rebels are doomed to lose their rebellion and the Franco regime will persist for several decades. Even so, after [[spoiler:Ofelia dies, traces of her exist on Earth, from flowers blooming near the mill, providing hope that one day there will be a world for the innocent to live and rest peacefully]].

* SavageWolf: In the novelization Ofelia refers to Vidal as "The Wolf" in her head. Toward the end of the story she decides this is actually [[InsultToRocks an insult to wolves]].

* SecretTestOfCharacter: In short, is it better to play it safe and obey, or to take the chance and be disobedient when you don't trust the authority in question? This theme is foreshadowed, in microcosmic form, in Ofelia's bedtime story for her unborn brother. The ultimate test is when [[spoiler:the Faun demands that Ofelia hand over her brother so that he can use the baby's blood to get her back home. She refuses and dies thanks to Vidal catching up to her. It turns out that her decision was the right one, and the Faun is relieved when she appears as Princess Moanna in the Underworld. The Fairy King says it was her refusal to hurt an innocent that proved she was still their princess]]. The test may have been set up even earlier with [[spoiler:the Pale Man's banquet. Ofelia is told very clearly not to eat anything before going to it, but she disregards the rule and wakes the monster. Afterward the Faun berates her for it, which might not be genuine anger, but an attempt to see if her now-proven ability to defy orders can be beaten down or not, leading into the last test. Ofelia is given the mission with a question of whether she can obey properly...when the solution requires she doesn't.]]
* SchmuckBait: Subverted. The Faun menacingly says [[spoiler:they need a "few drops of blood" from Ofelia's brother to open the portal. Ofelia sees the size of the knife and says no. It later turns out that this was part of her test and her father says refusing to spill the blood of an innocent showed that she could return home]].
* SchmuckBanquet: The Pale Man's cursed feast. Ofelia was instructed not to touch it and not to eat under any circumstances, but she could not resist those delicious-looking grapes. Too bad it woke up the horrible creature...
* ShootTheShaggyDog: [[spoiler:If you don't think the magic is actually real. Then it really is all just the product of a traumatized little girl who loves fairytales, who is brutally abused by her fascist stepfather, whose mother dies, and then who is murdered herself trying to rescue her little brother. Even the only bright spot (that Vidal is dead and Mercedes took the baby) is overridden by the fact that Franco will stay in power for decades, meaning that Mercedes, her brother, and the baby remain in real danger.]]

* ShutUpHannibal: [[spoiler: Vidal when he finds out he will not win promptly tries to break Mercedes and the rebels by a speech about his greatness. Mercedes won't even bother to let Vidal finish his speech.]]

* TheSociopath: Captain Vidal, a fascist police captain willing to torture and kill as many partisans as he has to to make sure fascists take power in Spain. He cares for nothing but his own power and legacy, not even blinking when he [[spoiler:shoots his adopted daughter]] to keep his biological son under his thumb.
* SoftGlass: Subverted in a scene early on which has Captain Vidal smashing a man's face in with a wine bottle. The ''bottle'' doesn't break. On the DVD commentary Del Toro relates a barfight he was in, seeing a friend beaten by a bottle which remained whole the whole time.
* SuddenSequelDeathSyndrome: [[spoiler: Adult versions of Jaime and Carlos from ''Film/TheDevilsBackbone'' appear as defeated rebels. Carlos lies dead, while Jaime, being unable to talk for an interrogation due to his wounds, pathetically tries to shove away the gun Captain Vidal is pointing at him, until he fires shooting through his hand and into his head]].

** Carmen soberly tells Ofelia that unlike the latter's fairy tale books, the world is a cruel place and magic doesn't exist.

** Captain Vidal's ambition is to do exactly this, despite the fact that he was too young to remember his father before he died. He is very much under his father's posthumous influence.
** It is also his ambition to have his son become a GenerationXerox of himself. [[spoiler:Mercedes prevents this.]]
* {{Unperson}}: "He won't even know your name." [[spoiler: Vidal and Carmen's son will be probably brought up by kind Mercedes, but she promises evil Vidal the boy will never hear about him.]] Ooh, that stings...
* VillainousBSOD: For what it's worth, Vidal looks like a part of him dies after [[spoiler:he shoots Ofelia, who was trapped in the labyrinth and holding her baby brother protectively. After all, she went into the labyrinth rather than to the rebels and she wasn't hurting his son, with her last words being a LittleNo to him. When he sees the rebels surrounding him with guns and Mercedes with a DeathGlare, he surrenders with minimal fuss]].
* VillainousParentalInstinct: Vidal may be a cold-blooded torturer and mass murderer, but he is totally committed to his baby son. It's implied that he only married Carmen because she got pregnant, and [he instructs the doctor to let her die if it saves the baby. When he's finally cornered by Mercedes and the rebels at the end, despite being the {{Determinator}} up until that point, he [[KnowWhenToFoldEm gives up relatively easily]] and calmly hands over the baby to Mercedes, asking her to give him his watch and tell him his LastWords when he grows up. [[spoiler:Mercedes refuses. See WhamLine below.]]

* WhatTheHellHero: Ofelia eats the grapes when she was strongly instructed not to. Two fairies were killed because of her and she escaped just in time, almost devoured herself. The Faun is harsh and berates her thoroughly.

* WhatYouAreInTheDark: Ofelia's ultimate test. She's faced with a chance to return to the Underworld as a princess, but the price is [[spoiler:giving her brother to the Faun to spill his blood. The Faun reassures her that it's just "a little bit" of blood and that the baby is is "little brat". Ofelia is eyeing the knife though, and how huge it is. She refuses because she promised to protect her little brother and he's going with her. This is before Vidal catches up to her and shoots her, and he can't see the Faun, so she was alone]].
* WhiteAndRedAndEerieAllOver: The Pale Man, as his name indicates, is a fairytale monster whose bleached skin is offset only be several flesh-colored highlights around its extremities and orifices.
* WickedStepmother: Vidal becomes an evil, intimidating step-father to Ofelia. The word "wicked" is a bit too mild to describe him.

* WrongGenreSavvy: Ofelia, depending on interpretation. She sees herself as the heroine of a fairy tale, when she's actually in a grim war film. [[spoiler: When she's shot in the novelization, she notes that none of her fairy tales ended like that]].

* VillainousParentalInstinct: Vidal may be a cold-blooded torturer and mass murderer, but he is totally committed to his baby son. It's implied that he only married Carmen because she got pregnant, and [he instructs the doctor to let her die if it saves the baby. When he's finally cornered by Mercedes and the rebels at the end, despite being the {{Determinator}} up until that point, he [[KnowWhenToFoldEm gives up relatively easily]] and calmly hands over the baby to Mercedes, asking her to give him his watch and tell him his LastWords when he grows up. [[spoiler:Mercedes refuses.]]

* DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything?: The children's shoes piled in the den of the Pale Man are eerily reminiscent of the heaps of shoes and other belongings that Nazi death camps collected from their victims during the Holocaust. Given the movie is set in [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarII 1944]], this is likely intentional.

* ClassicalLanguage: In the Spanish version, the Faun often uses the ''vosotros'' form, used for addressing multiple people, but to address Ofelia only. This is an example of very old Spanish, a bit like how English speakers might use "thee" and "thou" for the same idea.

Ofelia and her mother are taken to a villa in the mountains near an old labyrinth (the titular Faun'a) to be near Captain Vidal for the birth while he hunts down rebels. Ofelia is quickly [[BrokenMasquerade taken into]] a ChangelingFantasy about how she is [[RagsToRoyalty secretly a princess]] of the underworld fairy kingdom, lost to humanity for many ages. The labyrinth was one of many made by her father, the King of the Underworld, as gateways in the hope she would return.

As [[MagicalGirlQueenlinessTest she undergoes trials to prove her soul is uncorrupted]] by [[HumansAreBastards living among humans]], so do the rebels, her mother, and her nursemaid and only friend Mercedes.