In 1791, the tossing French were advancing their revolution in full swing. In the Constituent Assembly, three levels of representatives decided to use seats to express their attitude towards King Louis. Those who support the king's policy and hope to maintain the status quo sit on the king's right hand side. Those who opposed the Bourbon dynasty and advocated radical changes sat on the left hand of the king. Since then, revolutionaries all over the world have had a resounding label: "Leftists".
Over the next 100 years, the political history of Europe can generally be attributed to the history of struggle between the left and the right. In Spain in 1944, this struggle was unfolded in an extremely cruel way. The army general from the right, Franco, overthrew the Communist Party and other socialist left-wing governments with a civil war, and established an autocratic fascist dictatorship. The defeated leftists continued to fight in a guerrilla manner, and the rightist government reported brutal suppression. The little heroine Ophelia in "Pan's Labyrinth" revealed her adventure between reality and magic in this bloody wind.
In "Pan's Labyrinth", the director emphasized Ophelia's "left-leaning" stance at least three times. At the beginning of the film, Ophelia and her mother drove to the captain's camp. When she picked up the fragment of the statue on the way and patched it to the head of the statue, we noticed that she was patching the left eye (from O's perspective). Some commentators pointed out that the moral of this plot is to keep your eyes open and see the nature of the world clearly-from then on, the little girl will be able to see the world of elves that no one has ever seen. If this explanation is true, Ophelia has polished the left eye, and the essence she found is the essence seen from the perspective of the left wing. In layman's terms, she started to "see the world with the left eye" from then on.
The convoy arrived at the camp, and Ophelia and the captain met for the first time. The scene of the two shaking hands is interesting. The little girl held a pile of fairy tales in her right hand and stretched out her left hand tremblingly. As a fascist officer, the captain stretched out his right hand, grabbed her left hand, and said coldly: "it's the other hand, Ofelia" (it's the other hand, Ofelia). When a leftist meets a rightist, of course, they leave unhappily. In the words of Chairman Mao, between them, it is no longer a contradiction among the people, but a struggle between lines. A few minutes later, the little girl solemnly said to Mercedes in the maze: The captain is not my father. Firmly sever any legal ties with the right-wing dictator.
Ophelia went to the pale man's underground palace to perform the second task that Pan God gave her. There are three small doors on the wall. According to the instructions of the little elves, she should open the middle door. The little girl hesitated, opened the door on the left (again, from Ou's perspective), and took out a shiny dagger. The gods pointed out the middle way, but the little girl once again insisted on her leftist position.
The next plot is very interesting. After Ophelia got the dagger, according to the elf's gesture, she should kill the pale man whose hands were covered with human blood (in the context of this film, it is not difficult for us to regard him as a symbol of a fascist tyrant) . At this time, the little girl, who has always been calm and uncluttered, suddenly seemed to be a different person. She seemed to have forgotten her mission, attracted by the table full of feasts, and began to pick grapes and eat. Why is this story arranged like this? I used to be puzzled for a while. Does grape have any special meaning in Western culture? Baidu googled for half a day and found no clues. Later, someone on the Internet pointed out that this story is that the little girl failed to overcome her greed, so she did not fight the cannibal fascists to the end. Suddenly, I felt suddenly enlightened. It turns out that Ophelia is not a radical revolutionist, she has left a place for "warm-hearted humanity". Greed, or any other desire, is part of human nature. Human nature, for revolutionaries, is equal to weakness. Revolutionaries should be as ruthless as steel. Therefore, Paul rejected Dongnya's “comparative tenderness protected by classical novels” (Liu Xiaofeng "Remembering Tonya"); therefore, a ideological mentor advocated slowing down Fairplay and fighting the "falling water dog"; also Because of this, the leftist guerrillas in "Pan God" and the right fascists did exactly the same work when cleaning the battlefield. They both shot the enemy who fell on the ground twice...Ophelia's "compromise" at a critical moment "Regressing" and succumbing to her weakness shows that although this little girl is a firm leftist, she is also a moderate leftist.
Looking back at the story of the whole film now, through the weird magic and bloody reality, we can clearly see a nearly complete structure of left-wing revolutionary thought. At the beginning, the little girl closed her eyes to the statue, "open her eyes to see the world", which seemed to imply the beginning of the Enlightenment. From Rousseau to Ma\Ke\Si, their theories about revolution can find their roots in many assumptions of Enlightenment thought. Next, according to Pan Shen's instructions, Ophelia went to find a key under a decayed fig tree. The key leads to the short sword that can kill the pale man. In the "Bible", the fig tree is an image with rich meaning. Adam and Eve used fig leaves to hide his shame after being wise, which
connects the tree to the metaphor of civilization. Jesus once cursed a fig tree that was full of green leaves but did not produce fruit, causing the tree to wither away from its roots. Many biblical interpreters believe that the fig tree here alludes to Israel. The curse of Christ is prophesying that Israel will soon perish and that the Israelites will be dispersed to the whole world. In the film, we might as well think that the withered fig tree represents Spain in 1944, or the entire European civilization. As a revolutionary, Ophelia must find the key to defeat the enemy and build a new world from the declining European civilization.
Next, God Pan ordered the captain's newborn baby to be brought into the maze to complete Ophelia's "Father Search" and "Homecoming". Here, we can easily associate this newborn with the new human society. The ideal of the revolution is to build a new society. Father, the ruler of the old world, hopes that he will inherit the mantle; sister, the rebel of the old world, hopes to take him to a new world. Finally, the sister's ally, the guerrillas, got the child and shot him off his father. This is almost a replica of the true history of Spain. Juan Carlos has been brought up by the dictator Franco since he was in high school, and he has been designated as the heir. But he and Franco have completely different political positions. When he succeeded to become king, he embarked on a comprehensive democratization reform, bringing Spain into a brand new society. King Juan Carlos is the newborn who broke with the dictator's father.
Pan Shen asked to use a few drops of the baby's blood to open the door to the hometown, but Ophelia firmly refused. She did not want to leave a drop of blood for the next generation, but she paid the price of her life. Many viewers would think that if a little girl is a little more "flexible", for example, letting the baby donate a few drops of blood, or obediently returning the baby to the captain, she won't lose her life. In fact, her stubbornness is precisely to complete the destination of a revolutionary. Tan Sitong and Qiu Jin voluntarily gave up when they had a chance to escape. Revolution is to use sword and blood to open the door to heaven. This includes both the blood of the "enemy" and the blood of the revolutionaries themselves. As Tan Sitong said: "All countries have changed their laws from bloodshed. Today, China has never heard of people who have shed blood because of legal reforms. The reason why this country is not prosperous. If there is, please start with the same."
Ofili, who gave his blood. Ya, completed a process similar to the crucifixion of Christ, and finally returned to "Father". This is a standard "Bible·Revelation" scene. In the temple of God, the Father and God sit high in it, and the Son of God sits beside it, and will rule the world for several years. The revolutionary Ophelia became the ruler of the Christian millennium kingdom. If we understand the origins of various radical political ideals in the history of European thought (such as Utopia) and the "Bible Revelation", we will be able to understand this change better. The perfect ideal kingdom pursued by the revolutionaries of the past generations originated from the Millennium Kingdom in the "Revelation".
Throughout this process, from the enlightenment of ideas (filling eyes), to revolutionary actions (finding keys, getting short swords), to bloodshed and sacrifice (death), building a new society (competing for babies), and finally realizing the ideal kingdom (homecoming) , Ophelia nearly finished a complete revolution in her magical and real world. The only thing missing here is the elimination of the enemies of the revolution. As a moderate leftist, the little girl asked her to complete this task, which seemed to be against her political stance. In the play, the director asked her guerrilla friend to do it for her. In reality, the later democratization of Spain was achieved in a peaceful way, and Franco’s party members were hardly punished. The left and the right have eliminated the bloody hatred that lasted for half a century in the gradual reforms.
At the end of the film, the once dry fig tree bloomed with white flowers.
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