Guillermo del Toro’s dark fable Pan’s Labyrinth (2006) is celebrating its 20th anniversary this October in cinemas across the United States and Canada. Del Toro’s films are inhabited with monsters — supernatural creatures brought to life with award-winning prosthetics and practical effects, and the scarier kind that look like you and me.
“Pan’s Labyrinth is a tale that speaks about today as much as it did 20 years ago,” del Toro said, “and is perhaps more needed now than ever.”
Cineverse, an entertainment technology company and studio, announced on April 9 that Fathom Entertainment, a specialty distributor of content working with theatrical partners around the globe, will distribute del Toro’s award-winning classic in 4K, premium HDR by Barco and Real 3D for the first time. The filmmaker worked closely with this team to supervise the new restorations. Marketing materials for the re-release emphasize that the restoration process was free of AI-use. “Made by Humans. For Humans.” reads a prominent tagline on the website for the film.
“Collaborating with Guillermo del Toro on Pan’s Labyrinth has been a dream come true for our entire team,” said Vincent Defebo, SVP of Development and operations at SDFX Studios, which created the “immersive visual effects” for the stereoscopic 3D release.
Born in Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico in 1964, del Toro made his feature writing and directorial debut with Cronos (1992). After working in the U.S. on such big budget studio films as Blade II (2002) and Hellboy (2004), he decided he would work outside the commercial and creative constraints of Hollywood for his next passion project, for which he would prove to be unwavering in bringing his vision to the screen.
Set in 1944 Spain after “Generalissimo” Francisco Franco’s fascistic coup toppled the Second Spanish Republic and its democratically elected Popular Front government in a brutal civil war, we meet a 10-year-old girl named Ofelia (Ivana Baquero) whose world is turned upside down when she is forced to relocate to a rural military post with her ailing pregnant mother Carmen (Ariadna Gil) and her sadistic stepfather, Capitán Vidal (Sergi López). It is Vidal’s job to eradicate the anti-fascist rebels hiding in the neighboring woods.
Ofelia discovers an underground realm, guided by a mysterious faun-like creature who tells her she is the lost princess “Moanna” who has forgotten her true identity and “where she came from.” She then sets out on a quest to complete the faun’s “Three Tasks.”
A self-confessed daydreamer who often sketches his ideas in colorfully illustrated leather-bound notebooks, del Toro seemingly draws from various wells of inspiration, with some critics citing Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland and the works of Arthur Machen, most notably The Great God Pan (1894) and The White People (1904). However, the filmmaker has said he prefers “creating his own worlds.”
“I think it’s better to do it free flow, free form,” del Toro said in one interview. “I take from Machen, for example, the awe of the ancient forests. With Lord Dunsany, I take the poetic spirit of his fairy tales. As a director, I have been attracted to the aesthetics of horror. I’m more attracted to the mechanics of a fairy tale.”
Spain’s Second Republic, proclaimed on April 14, 1931, was attacked by Franco and Nationalist forces on July 18, 1936, backed by wealthy landowners and the Catholic Church, with assistance from Italian fascists and the Nazis, whose Luftwaffe mercilessly bombed Spain, allegedly to save the country from its own people. For nearly four decades, Franco ruled Spain as a dictator until his death in 1975.
“Franco claimed to be fighting a ‘crusade’ to ‘save’ Spain from the ‘anti-Spanish’ ‘red hordes,’” Professor of Hispanic Studies at Oberlin College Sebastiaan Faber told Little Village, “and the Church bought into that narrative.”
Pan’s Labyrinth is the “sister,” or companion, for del Toro’s film The Devil’s Backbone (2001), set during the final week of the civil war in 1939. The filmmaker has said that both films deal with “brutality and innocence.”
Faber, who helped with some of the ancillary materials for The Criterion Collection edition of The Devil’s Backbone, tells Little Village, “Del Toro’s strength is his fantastically creative mind. In [The Devil’s Backbone], he was able to link fantasy and history in a way that reinforced both.”
The Devil’s Backbone deals with groups of children, showing fascist and antifascist group dynamics (bullying vs. solidarity), as Faber notes. Pan’s Labyrinth, which is more allegorical and set after the Republic’s fall to the regime, focuses on Ofelia, who is “on her own, lost in a world of adults.”
During its original theatrical run, the film won three Academy Awards for cinematography, art direction and make-up. Equally as haunting as the film’s stunning visuals are the heart-wrenching performances and composer Javier Navarrete’s score, especially the humming of the lullaby “Long, Long Time Ago,” which will follow audiences long after they leave the theater.
“I’d argue it resonates even more today,” Fathom Entertainment vice president of marketing Shannah Miller told Little Village. “Pan’s Labyrinth works on so many levels at once. It’s a dark fairy tale, a war film and a coming-of-age story, and every audience finds its own way in. The imagery is unforgettable, but what stays with people is the heart of it: a young girl choosing courage, imagination and compassion in a world that offers her little of any of them.”
The film will be released on Oct. 9 in select theaters, coinciding with del Toro’s 62nd birthday.
