‘Pale Man Times:’ Pan’s Labyrinth Comes to the UK 20 Years Later in 4K

Death-white, faceless. A sickly, sinewy figure sits; thin-boned, faceless. Old. Ancient drawings of it cannibalising children on the walls. A young girl breathes. The table aches with delicious, dark decadence. She plucks a plump, red grape from its branch, and swallows, swatting away two twitchy, warning pixies. He stirs. He presses two gummy, red balls into his holed palms, and brings them to his face. The Pale Man (Doug Jones), with terrifying ease, tears the pixies’ heads off, gulping them down. The girl runs.

Guillermo del Toro’s seminal Pan’s Labyrinth was introduced to me in first-year Spanish. Being twelve, I knew very little about film. There were films I enjoyed and films I did nog enjoy. These lazy, post-lunch, teacher-approved watches tended towards the latter camp. I had no clue what I was in store for. Pan’s Labyrinth taught me that film could be an art-piece, a moving collection of human parts and intent. 

Now, 20 years after its initial release, Pan’s Labyrinth returns to the UK big screen –  a stunning 4K restoration that breathes new life into del Toro’s gothic marvel. This new restoration first showed at Cannes Film Festival earlier this year, achieving an overwhelming, 22-minute standing ovation. In spellbinding human-made 4K and 3D, and supervised by del Toro himself, movie-goers across the UK can be enchanted by one of cinema’s most haunting films this Halloween season. 

The film, set in 1944 Falangalist Spain, follows young Ofelia (Ivana Baquero) and her struggling, pregnant mother (Ariadna Gil), living by the wild, unkind woods of the second world war, housed by increasingly cruel step-father Captain Vidal (Sergi López). Guillermo del Toro’s morose fable marries fascistic terror with fantasy. Ofelia is resistant; a reader, a lover of fables. Adults, as adults do, shirk her imagination. As her mother puts it, ‘life isn’t like your fairytales. The world is a cruel place. And you’ll learn that, even if the truth hurts.’

Ofelia’s world is the world of grown-ups. It is a violent, hateful world. She has no agency. Make-believe, her reprieve, seems, at a glimpse, just that. Make-believe. Del Toro, however, toys with the audience’s notion of reality and unreality. Is Pan, the Faun, real? Is the labyrinth real? Is Ofelia coping by escapism, or is this vivacious young girl the true princess and heir of the magical Underworld?

This Oz-like tale twists the horrors of 1944 Spain into surreal, fantastic images. Del Toro, on his infamous monster, tweeted: ‘The Pale Man represents all institutional evil feeding on the helpless. It’s not accidental that he is a) Pale b) a Man. He’s thriving now. These are Pale Man times.’

Like Captain Hook to Mr. Darling, like the Wicked Witch of the West to Miss Gulch, the Pale Man is the vessel through which Del Toro realises the impossible greed of fascism. The Pale Man, sat with his neverending banquet, mirrors Vidal. He too is the head of his table, a warm, kingly splay of impossible food spread out for him and his fascist party, all the while discussing war rations. Pale Man times, indeed. Two stories converge into one: political drama, Ofelia’s magic quest.

Pan’s Labyrinth is a subversive fairytale. Beyond Del Toro’s dreadful style. Although it includes many of the traditional beats one might expect of a fairytale, such as its three-quest structure, the film does something that many fairy stories do not. It gives Ofelia choices. Fables are normally didactic in nature. We, as readers, expect a clear moral, a clear lesson, and HAPPILY EVER AFTER in bold print. 

Children in these stories lack interiority. Often, they are simply used to show a lesson. They are to sit still and do as they are told. Don’t stray from the path. Don’t explore. Listen to your elders. Bad things will happen. Ofelia, like everything else in Del Toro’s gothic fable, is never just one thing. She is kind, smart, creative. She is also often selfish, brash. Above all, she is willful. She gets muddy. She misbehaves. And she believes. The narrative grants Ofelia the autonomy to make decisions without the restrictions of the despotic Vidal and the adult world. In times of uncertainty and darkness, it is important we, like Ofelia, resist, in all the ways we can – this movie seems, now, more relevant than ever.

Pan’s Labyrinth will have limited showings starting on 30th October, continuing into early November.

Pan’s Labyrinth at GFT

Pan’s Labyrinth at Filmhouse