The scene were the captain had to sew up his mouth reminded me of my favorite Japanese urban legend (the kuchisake onna--mouth ripped woman).

I don't know if it's necessarily thematic, but Ofelia had to escape. The route she set for the escape wasn't easy and was fraught with consequences (real or imagined-viewer’s choice). Also, the thought that your final thought determines where you spend eternity (will you have a smile on your corpse?) resonates very strongly with me. I felt that the two elements were very closely bound. –Just a thought, Did Vidal not see Pan precisely because he was hopped up on opiates?

Brian Orndorf says: Where my mind and heart differ on the film is how it all ties together. I understand that del Toro is leaning toward a more interpretative experience by blurring the edges of Ofelia's sanity and thickening the Fascism commentary, I only question why the two stories aren't allowed a distinct meeting point; a place of respectful simplicity that binds the stories in an indisputable way to help better intend the goals of the picture.


I thought the ending was that meeting point where the 2 plotlines crash into each other. A very well done ending.

I think the whole point of the 2 plots was to contrast the harsh brutality of reality with the innocence of fantasy, a contrast of maturity and youth, life and death, and then merge them all together in a swift stroke at the very end with Ofelia's death/entrance into her "heaven". The polar opposites are all blended as one in that moment... Ofelia dies, her newborn brother lives, Ofelia gets cruelly shot to death, she is reborn in an innocent fantasy kingdom.

One of the key quotes of the film was when Ofelia's mother tells her when she grows up she'll learn the difficulties/harshness of the world- that can crush the spirit. It's Ofelia's escapism (her innocence and power to dream) which allows her to transcend beyond that.

It really is a Transcendentalist film, even hinting at Plato's Allegory of the Cave in the beginning fairy tale narration: A girl going out of the dark underworld (her kingdom) into the light and being blinded by it. Ofelia makes the descent back down into the cave (returning to her kingdom) at the movie's end after her "enlightenment"- her lesson learned- self-sacrifice- which allows her to die happily in peace.

I don't think that Ofelia's fantasies have any direct allegory/link to her reality, i.e. the Toad is not some escapism form of Vidal. No, there is only a thematic connection. And that is the power of self-sacrifice (both from the civil war rebels and that of Ofelia).

It's largely open to intreptation- Vidal didn't see Pan because Pan is a figment of Ofelia's imagination.. Thus, why Ofelia's real mom, dad, and brother end up being the royalty of her imaginary kingdom- that all exists in her mind.

Did anyone else think all the fantasy stuff was just in her head? That's how I saw it, but I'm pretty sure DelToro left it open to interpertation by the audience - i.e., if you're a hopeful sort of person, the fantasy elements really happened, if you're a cynic, they were all in her head, as a means to cope with her brutal surroundings.

I prefer to think of them as all in her head. Her real world was so cold and cruel that it makes sense that she would retreat to a fantasy world (I'm a princess is almost the cliche child escape dream).

I think in the end, she faced her reality by refusing to blindly obey the fawn.

There were a lot of issues with obedience in the film--her being obedient with the first task, accidentally disobedient with the second, and willfully disobedient with the third. The doctor (was it the doctor? someone. . . ) told the Captain that blind obedience was wrong, so that ties in there.

I did read an interview with del Toro, where he said that for him, the fantasy was real, but only for those who looked closely. I like it that he left it open though, because to me, it's a better story left in the real world.

Edit--took out the paragraph about how I'd wait to see it again till later. I will see it again (I'll admit that even though I'm a woman, "fanboy" is not a far off description for me when it comes to del Toro) but I watched it again this afternoon.

At first I thought it was too much like "The Devil's Backbone" with the sadistic male antagonist and the innocent little kid who seems to have a connection to the supernatural. I thought there were too many scenes that kept showing us what a jackass the military captain was. Him shooting the farmer guy and his son established him as a nasty villain early on in the film that it started to become redundant as scene after scene kept reminding us how evil he was.

I felt the whole subplot of evil military vs. good revolutionaries was pretty conventional movie stuff that didn't offer many surprises. The revolutionaries weren't fleshed out enough other than the fact that were supposed to be the good guys, and I thought the military captain came off as too dumb that it was pretty obvious who was going to triumph in the end.

The little girl eating the grapes to awaken the monster was a bit contrived and you could see it coming a mile away, even though it wasn't set up well enough. The monster was a really imaginative creation and I would have liked to have seen even more of it, but if there was a sleeping monster sitting at a table and pictures on the wall depicting him eating kids, would you stop to chomp on a couple of grapes instead of just getting the hell out of there? Maybe if they had established that she was starving or showed the grapes beckoning to her it would have made more sense.

However, by the end I thought the film had earned its big emotional climax and I was moved by the little girl's sacrifice. I was glad that Del Toro didn't try to sugarcoat the ending and really left it up to the viewer to interpret what exactly had transpired.

I thought Ofelia's tasks and Mercedes tasks matched very nicely and tied the stories into one.

Task 1:
Ofelia--get the key from the toad
Mercedes--use the key to help the Resistance open the storeroom

Task 2:
Ofelia--get the knife from the Pale Man
Mercedes--use the knife to escape the captain

Task 3:
Ofelia--deliver her baby brother to the fawn (which she chooses not to do)
Mercedes--take the baby from the captain

While I prefer the story as imaginary (ie, Ofelia dies at the end), I thought it was really cool how Ofelia tells her brother about a rose that grants immortality, but no one will pick it because of the thorns. Then the movie ends on a flower that is the promise of Ofelia's immortality, but I and many audience members will refuse to "pick it," because we are too grounded in reality.

Also, I loved how Ofelia's first encounter with the fairy bug involves finding the eye to that statue, since so much of this movie depends on blindness (the captain being blind to a woman traitor in his house, the adults being blind to Ofelia's fantasy world, etc.)

I had images of a grand fantasy film in my head, that happened to take place against the backdrop of the Spanish Civil War. I did not at all expect a story of the Spanish Civil War that happened to have a few fantasy elements in it. That being said, i think a second viewing might make me appreciate it more, since I now know what to expect. But, aside from the Pale Man sequence, I thought this was Del Toro's second weakest film (first being Mimic). Granted, Del Toro's worst is still better than most filmmakers' best, but I didn't have much emotional connection to the film. It was a technical marvel but it didn't engross me. Even with the symmetries people mentioned, I didn't feel like the two stories connected well, or, in fact, that Ofelia's story had a satisfactory conclusion. Again, with the exception of the Pale Man, her fantasies were cliche to a fault. It's not the worst film I've seen recently (that would be Inland Empire), but it wasn't the best, either.