By Dan Skip Allen

“Pans Labyrinth” wasn’t the first time I saw a Guillermo Del Toro movie, but it was the best film in his filmography that I’ve seen and still is to this day after his thirty or year career. In the 2000s I had it as my number 1 or 2 film of the decade and when the popular sight and sound poll came out last year the popular thing to do was rank your top 10 films of the first quarter century and I had it at #1 on my list. That’s how much I love this film. When I heard Fathom Events was doing a special 3D 20th Anniversary run of the movie, I had to see it. It’s something different than the original version, but it doesn’t take away from the movie that I loved and still do from 20 years ago. It adds a new element to this story. I think fans of the film will enjoy this new version of this amazing Spanish fantasy foreign film.

Ofelia (Ivana Baquero) is a rambunctious and curious young girl. She moves to a secluded wilderness area of Spain. Her mother’s boyfriend, Vidal (Sergi Lopez), just so happens to be a Captain in the Spanish army in 1944. He and his militia are there to snuff out a group of resistance fighters who won’t back down. This is part of the Spanish Civil War. Her mother Carmen (Ariadna Gil) is ill and pregnant, so she was brought here to get good care from the local doctor. This allows this little girl to explore the woods surrounding their base. She starts following a bug that turns into a fairy around, and it leads her to a labyrinth where she meets a tall scary faun (Doug Jones) who gives her three tasks to accomplish. As they sometimes will, kids believe what they see, and she decides to go about trying to do the tasks she was given because it means she’s a princess in a magical kingdom. 

Besides the main story, there is a side story in this film. The fantasy aspects are one thing, but there is a real element to this story. The movie takes place in 1944 in the shadow of WWII. So, there is a realistic historical part of this story. With that comes death, blood being spilled, and in the case of one particular character, Mercedes (Maribel Verdu), she is living every day trying to hide her true nature from the Captain. Her brother is one of the Franco guerrillas. The previous leader of the country. She still believes in their cause. Hiding from the Captain isn’t easy, and as the film progresses, she finds it harder and harder. Her story is equally as compelling as Ofelia’s but more grounded in reality and historical fact. Del Toro balances both storylines very nicely before eventually connecting them.

The fantasy aspects of the story mainly involving Ofelia are the most compelling parts of the movie for me. The three tasks aren’t exactly easy for this little girl to achieve. The first task (The Giant Toad) is to retrieve a key from a toad that lives in a dead tree, the second task (The Pale Man) is to use the key to unlock a dagger from the lair of The Pale Man (Doug Jones) and the third task (The Labyrinth Alter) is to take her newly born half-brother to the labyrinth altar to get a few drops of his blood drawn to open the underworld. These tasks are filled with fantasy iconography that Del Toro loves to infuse into his films. At the time, these were some of the most original concepts ever brought to screen. I remember watching this film 20 years ago and being genuinely scared at the faun and the Pale Man. Those don’t compare to the real-life scary man of Captain Vidal and his fight for a fascist regime, though at the time.

This film focuses on a few main topics. The first was fascism which was big at the time. Hitler had just been defeated in WWII after million were killed in the effort. It also deals with disobedience from a little girl trying to be curious and use her imagination to figure things out as well as the servant who tries to help her brother in secret. These two topics are juxtaposed to one another through the entire movie, but the main topic is the real-life blood and violence compared to the fantasy violence and scary creature of the labyrinth. Del Toro is a master at using realistic themes and infusing fantasy aspects into those. His entire filmography has done such great work of this. As a film critic and overall movie aficionado, this is great to me. That’s why this movie still stands up today as much as it did twenty years ago.

Besides the 20th anniversary of this great film, there was another thing that compelled me to see this fantastic movie once again. That is the addition of 3D to the film. I’m not the biggest fan of 3D in my movies, but when it’s done right, like in 2011’s “Hugo,” I’m a big fan of it. Scorsese had never worked with the medium before, and he made sure to do justice by it if he were going to use it. Del Toro already had a great version of this movie for people to see. He didn’t need to do a 4D version, but he’s an artist, and he took the challenge of trying something new. The 3D aspects weren’t super noticeable, but they did work in the scenes they were used for. For instance, when Ofelia is entering an area of the woods at night, you see a bunch of fireflies flying around. 3D was added to this scene. Also, when the Pale Man is chasing her through his lair, the 3D is used here and works great to show the true danger she is in. Del Toro uses it in subtle moments where it worked so well to make the movie that much better.

“Pans Labyrinth” is one of the greatest of its kind and era that it came out in. It’s my number 1 movie of the century. It has themes that people can relate to today in our society. It also has themes of innocence and childhood imagination. The fantasy aspects show why Del Toro is one of the best filmmakers of his generation. He is able to take realistic production design and make up and so forth to make audiences scared at what they are watching on screen. After seeing this film for the first time twenty years ago and realizing how great it was to now seeing it again twenty years later with a new wrinkle thrown in to make it even better. The 3D conversion that was added to the film was a nice addition to an already great movie. A few key moments stood out to me, but having an opportunity to see this amazing movie once again was worth my time despite the addition of 3D to it. A must see anyway you can see it.

🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 stars