The magical realm in the film is full of dark, weird and terrifying. No matter the character, the decoration of the props, the vegetation, the gloomy underground cave, and even the texture of the picture itself, there is an evil and charming charm, half-human. The half-goat Pan, the toad, and the gray skeleton man, their surreal appearances are daunting, and they embody del Toro's reverie and love of the fantasy world on the back of the light. The overall quality of the film is almost perfect. If you have to pick something wrong, it is that the metaphor behind it is not clear enough. Different audiences will have different understandings, and the director can completely tell the story more plainly and thoroughly.
The most fascinating thing about "Pan's Labyrinth" is that it tells two completely different stories at the same time. One is full of magnificent fantasies, naive but beautiful; the other is bloody and cold; the two penetrate each other and merge together to form this magical work. The film has always coordinated the adventure of the magic kingdom with the anti-fascist struggle in reality with a black-tone oil painting texture, allowing the audience to wander freely between the different evils of reality and surreal through the innocent perspective of a little girl.
The film is a dark fairy tale, but it is more naked and ironic than those exposed by the film. Whether in the silhouette style of games or in art works such as painting and photography, the dark system appears more and more frequently. In a bitter and stimulating way, they always wake up people to cherish the beauty around them.
"Pan's Labyrinth" is a strange and magnificent movie, first it is a war movie, and second it is a magical movie. There are two parallel worlds in the film, one is the real world where Ophelia lives, which is a place full of war and pain; the other is the world that Ophelia imagined, in that world he can Take risks and get a touch of comfort. However, under the direction of Gilmour del Toro, the world of beautiful fairy tales does not exist at all, and fairy tales are as cruel and ruthless as reality. The two are intertwined to produce a distorted and twisted worldview. It is precisely this kind of perverted viewpoint that allows people to see the beauty and the true feelings in Ophelia's heart. The director did not directly fight the war in the film, but expressed the impact of war on children's psychology through cruel fairy tales. A beautiful fairy tale, a war of guerrillas against fascism, the two are intertwined, twisted and beautiful. But this distorted charm makes people see a kind of touching power.
