Ofelia’s Reality vs. Fantasy in the Pale Man’s Chamber of Pan’s Labyrinth From the film, Pan’s Labyrinth (2006), I chose the scene of Ofelia opening and closing the door to her real world and the Pale Man’s chamber (56:48 – 1:01:48) because this specific scene displays the reality of the female protagonist, Ofelia, but also the theme of reality vs. fantasy world for Ofelia. It is a fantasy, but at the same time a true-to-life one. It expresses a girl’s hope, who is imagining of a fantasy world but at the same time destroying her hopes because of how her reality really is. The idea of using an hourglass as a symbol of what is used to warn Ofelia about the time is an object that is used in most historic movies which gives a traditional feeling …show more content…
The Pale Man character of this scene symbolizes grief, but also builds fear and suspense. The painting is a hint of what troubles Ofelia will be facing soon. Another mise-en-scene of this part of the scene in the film is a shot of a part of Ofelia’s task. The task that the Faun gave her was that Ofelia was not to eat the food on the table, but due to her disobedience and rebellion towards the Faun’s warning and the fairies’ gestures, she ate a grape and two more after. Also having the food in front of the Pale Man, Del Toro wants to indicate that the Pale Man only eats children and the food is just a temptation sign for the children that will disobey the orders, which also hints another outcome of Ofelia being in danger. For evidence, according to Pramaggiore and Wallis’s film analysis of Pan’s Labyrinth, it was said that, “Before sending the girl on her mission, the Faun instructs Ofelia not to eat anything off the Pale Man’s banquet table, lest she awaken the beast and wind up becoming the meal herself.” (Pramaggiore & Wallis, …show more content…
It destroys Ofelia’s fantasy and indicates the audience that there are no differentiations between reality and fantasy for Ofelia. But other than that, it shows Ofelia living in a miserable world. The symbolism within the Pale Man’s character is important. It doesn’t only show Ofelia’s feelings and her reality world, but it also symbolizes Fascism. The Pale Man displays the brutality of the period. In this case, Gyota, Saturn Devouring his Son is an intertextual reference of the Pale Man killing children. The parallel of this film and scene, is Captain Vidal (reality) and the Pale Man (fantasy) because they both are brutal and express lack of humanity. According to Pramaggiore and Wallis’s film analysis of Pan’s Labyrinth, also compared the similarity between Captain Vidal and the Pale Man, “The fact that the Pale Man hoards food further underscores the parallel with Vidal, who also stingily controls the distribution of resources…” (Pramaggiore & Wallis,
The central focus on the table, in the painting, is what it appears to look like a book of Sor Juana. Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, is a huge Mexican, feminist icon. During the seventeenth century, while the Spanish still occupied mexican territory, The catholic church had a significant amount of power. Sor Juana challenged the church by being a controversial figure at the time by her being a well-educated woman, nun, and poet/writer, during a time where men were
It is amazing how in many stories a group of the most unlikely characters can overcome the most impossible odds. The battle of good vs. evil is reenacted in thousand upon thousand of movies. A lot of the times in these movies the group of heroes consist of very ordinary or odd characters, those who seem to possess few heroic traits. As seen in the movies Labyrinth and the first made Star Wars, a group of small and seemingly powerless characters can overcome great evils.
Pan’s Labyrinth (2006) written and directed by Guillermo del Toro is a dark fantasy film that uses fantasy and inspired true events of the after effects of the Spanish Civil War to create a symbolic parable that was influenced by fairy tales and myths. Even though this film is explicitly about the times during Franco it is also a film that can speak for any time period, past, present, and future. Through the use of phantasmagorical elements in the fantasy sequences del Toro uses doubling to reinforce the horrific events that have and can happen again in reality. The film takes place five years after the Spanish Civil War during Francisco Franco’s reign of terror. The story focuses on Ofelia (Ivana Baquero) as well as Ofelia’s evil stepfather, Captain Vidal (Sergi Lopez). Both characters represent something bigger than they actually are; Ofelia is seen to represent Spain and the antifascists whereas Captain Vidal represents Franco and fascism. Ofelia has to complete three daunting tasks given to her by the Faun (Doug Jones) that is said to reunite her with her family, the King and Queen of the Underworld. Del Toro uses doubling of the mythical realm with the ‘real world’ throughout the film that emphasizes the underlying meaning of the film. The film also follows the story of the anti-fascists rebels that are hidden amongst the trees and mountains. The character Mercedes (Maribel Verdu) is able to fool Captain Vidal for most of the film and help the rebels. It is not until the near end of the film where Captain Vidal realizes that Mercedes has been helping the rebels the entire time and it is due partly because of his misogyny that he is unable to see her as a threat to his cause.
The scene of the Pale Man in the movie Pan’s Labyrinth is much like the feeling you get during a storm. The Pale Man remains asleep and all is clam in his dungeon until Ofelia eats the grapes, after she was given clear, strict rules to not eat anything on his table. Her leisurely curiosity leaves her blind to the awakened monster behind her, but once she realizes her impending doom, she quickly tries to find an escape. Some may believe it was Ofelia’s disobedience of
In Jim Henson’s Labyrinth the plot closely follows the narrative structure that is documented by Propp and described by Berger. Propp establishes a series of functions which all Russian fairy tales followed and which Berger finds easily applies to modern day narratives. When these functions are applied to Labyrinth, they fit easily into the movies story line. The protagonist, Sarah, is an adequate example of Propp’s hero with some gender norms reversed and Jareth fits into the archetype of the villain. Labyrinth presents an excellent example to Berger’s updated interpretation of Propp’s fairy tale theory of structure, while presenting important modernizations to the structure.
Guillermo del Toro was born in Guadalajara Jalisco, Mexico and was raised by his Catholic grandmother. He had an interest in filmmaking at a young age but learned about special effects and makeup first. In 1993, del Toro got his career break with Cronos after it won nine academy awards in Mexico (Guillermo del Toro). Soon after, del Toro created his first Hollywood film, Mimic. Unfortunately, del Toro describes Mimic as the worst film he has ever made and the hardest to work on due to constant interruptions by producers. He returned to Mexico in order to form his own production company, greatly disliking the demanding Hollywood studios (Guillermo del Toro). Del Toro is well known for his films in the horror genre and his love for dark beauty
Denial is one of those emotions that leads to personal problems as well as community problems. When not dealt with it can lead to suffering, isolation, and family dysfunction. In the Labyrinth and A Monster Calls both characters are shown to the reader or watcher that a person can overcome their denial, suffering, family dysfunction, and isolation because with these things a person can grow into a mature being and have a deeper understanding of one’s self.
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, is the third book in the trilogy of J. K. Rowlings other Harry Potter books, though she is coming out with four more books in the coming years.
The horror genre has created massive franchises from many sub-genres: the slasher sub-genre spawned a dozen of “A Nightmare on Elm Street,” and monster movies created the “Godzilla” franchise, and even parody movies quickly became popular with the “Scary Movie” series. However, one sub-genre that does not spawn many sequels is the suspense horror movies. Even without a sequel, “Pan’s Labyrinth” proves to be an excellent example of suspense in horror movies. Part of the horrific story of “Pan’s Labyrinth” is it’s believable, but none the less magical, setting. A child of a Spanish mother, who is slowly dying from the child she is carrying, and a father part of the Nazi party in 1944 is pulled into a forest home by her father after he was reassigned.
Many other characters alter his viewpoint of the world. Some of these characters die, one is a murderer, and another introduces him to local myths. The heroine in Pan’s Labyrinth is Ofelia, a girl trapped in the middle of a revolution and escapes into a world of fairytales through books and imagination. Ofelia’s mother, Carmen, is pregnant and very sick. Under the influence of her husband, she encourages her daughter to stop reading childhood fantasies and to obey her new husband....
In the title “In This Strange Labyrinth”, the labyrinth is symbolic of love’s maze-like qualities. The speaker describes her predicament by saying, “In this strange Labyrinth how shall I turn/Ways are on all sides” (1-2). A different path on every side surrounds her, and every way seems to be the wrong way. She is confused about which way she should go. Wroth is conveying the theme of love in a decidedly negative way, for according to myth, the Labyrinth was where the Minotaur lived and before it’s demise, death was evident for all visitors of the maze. The speaker is struggling with every choice she may make and cannot rest or find aid until she finds the best way: “Go forward, or stand still, or back retire;/ I must these doubts endure without allay/ Or help, but travail find for my best hire” (10-11). She has several choices and each one is confusing and leaves her feeling helpless.
Why Audience Matters: A Look at How Pan’s Labyrinth Fits into Fantastic Literature In literary theorist, Tzvetan Todorov’s, The Fantastic” A Structural Approach to a Literary Genre, he provides a framework for what he describes as “fantastic” literature, or literature that involves a supernatural world or events. Todorov’s framework hinges on the idea of the fantastic being defined by the presence of shocking events. Early in his framework, he defines the fantastic with the idea of “hesitation,” the feeling that readers and characters experience when they are deciding whether the shocking events they have encountered are real or just something they imagined (Todorov 136). However, he later expands on this idea by introducing the idea of the “generalized fantastic,” where a work is defined as
J.R.R. Tolkien's concept of too much power is summed up by Lord Acton when he once said, "Power corrupts, but absolute power corrupts absolutely." In Tolkien's first book of his fantasy based trilogy, Lord of the Rings, the Fellowship of the Rings tells a story of a quest to destroy a powerful ring throughout Tolkien's created "Middle Earth". This quest was headed by a "Hobbit" named Frodo Baggins who, in the end, becomes corrupted by power himself. This corruption begins when Frodo uses his ring to become invisible over and over again to escape certain situations. The quest to destroy the powerful "Ruling Ring" forms the basis for this story.
I spent a lot of time considering what movie I would watch to write this essay. I listed off the movies that I would like to watch again, and then I decided on The Notebook. I didn’t really think I could write about adolescence or children, so I thought that, maybe, I could write about the elderly. The love story that The Notebook tells is truly amazing. I love watching this movie, although I cry every time I watch it. The Notebook is about an elderly man that tells the story of his life with the one he loves the most, his wife. He is telling the story to his wife, who has Alzheimer’s Disease, which is a degenerative disease that affects a person’s memory. She has no recollection of him or their life together, or even her own children. She wrote the story of their love herself, so that when he read the story to her, she would come back to him. There are three things that I would like to discuss about this movie. First, I would like to discuss their stage of life and the theory that I believe describes their stage of life the best. Second, I would like to discuss Alzheimer’s DIsease and its affect on the main character who has it and her family. Third, I would like to discuss how at the end of the movie, they died together. I know it is a movie, but I do know that it is known that elderly people who have been together for a long time, usually die not to far apart from one another.
Pan’s Labyrinth is a fairy tale that begins the story with a girl named Ofelia, and her adventure to home. The fairy tale is about the importance of moral disobedience. The story clearly illustrates moral disobedience with different scenes of a young girl, Ofelia. The best example scene is when Ofelia refuses to harm his little brother, even at the cost of her own life. Sometimes, disobeying orders might be better, but sometimes its not.