Guillermo Del Toro Believes

[mishalak]

He purposefully made it so that viewers could see it go either way, but he thinks that at the end of Pan's Labyrinth Ofelia really did become the Princess of the Underworld. This makes me very happy.

I never thought the magic was all imagination. There was too much for that to be true, though I could see hints of that as well. What I wondered about was if at the very end the faun was lying. If he was trying to manipulate her into willingly giving up the blood of the innocent baby or some variation on that. That would make what happened when the Captain shot Ofelia a dream even though all the rest of the magic was real. That's the uncertainty that worried me the most. Not that she made it all up. Though I could see the argument made that everything else was just misdirection. Ofelia escaped from the room by other means not shown and the chalk door outline was left from her earlier play. The labyrinth didn't really open up for her, she just left a drunkly staggering Captain so far behind that it seemed to him like that is what happened, etc... But I though that was a distant third behind my idea that the magic was real, but would not save her.

Comments

[elemirion]

That is what I got out of it. She had to pass through death to become Princess of the Underworld...

[mishalak.livejournal.com]

I hoped that was true. I wanted to believe that was what happened, but the way of the story left me with a sad doubt.

[thirdworld.livejournal.com]

He hinted at his preferred ending. For example the girl had no way to escape her room without the magic chalk. If the magic was real then so is the magical ending.

[mrteufel.livejournal.com]

That's a good point. I was leaning toward the more tragic interpretation, but you've made me think again.

[thirdworld.livejournal.com]

It is a chink in his armor, that he had a preference at all. Something was bound to creep in ;).

[mishalak.livejournal.com]

It would be hard for one person to create a totally ambiguous movie. You'd need a two directors/writers who could get along well enough in their differing opinions to make a movie and yet dedicated enough to their own vision to keep each other in check. Humans tend to be very dedicated to their own point of view and Del Torro likes magic and monsters.

[thirdworld.livejournal.com]

Oh, I agree. I'm just saying that it gives us more clues than perhaps he intended. Then again, maybe he wants us to think about it and see the clues. He did not say that in an interview I heard, but it is conceivable. Either way it was an exceptional movie.

[mishalak.livejournal.com]

I also wondered, myself, if the magic was real but the faun abandoned her. So the becoming a princess part was a dream, but all the rest of it was real. There were a lot of possible interpretations there.

[thirdworld.livejournal.com]

Except that she gets out of her guarded room after the faun abandoned her.

[mishalak.livejournal.com]

No, I mean at the end. When she didn't give him the blood of the innocent he wanted. I wondered if the last test wasn't the test, but the goal of the faun. So when she refused and was shot she really did die even though all the magic up to that point was real.

[thirdworld.livejournal.com]

Interesting. I think the evidence goes against it because the final vision is too odd for the girl. Still, true enough.

[mishalak.livejournal.com]

I thought the magic was more likely to be real than not, but I couldn't be sure. I worried that the PoV that showed the magic happening might be misdirection. She found a way to slip out and the door on the wall was left from her imaginary adventure. She actually just ran ahead of the Captain rather than the labyrinth opening up for her and not him, etc... The was enough doubt to make me cry all over the place.

And I also wondered if the magic really was real, but the faun was trying to get the blood of an innocent for its own reasons and she wasn't really the princess. If maybe she might really have died because the faun didn't get what he wanted and the underworld was a lie and dream.

[filkerdave.livejournal.com]

I thought the magic was likely real, but it was ambiguous enough (and you never DO see how she gets out of the room, so...)

[mrteufel.livejournal.com]

I had those exact same concerns. I saw some friends in the cinema, but left before meeting them afterward because I couldn't trust myself not to start blubbering all over them. ;(

[fancychopstix.livejournal.com]

Have you ever seen The Devil's Backbone. I like to think of it as a rough sketch of Pan's Labyrinth. Spanish. Same time period. Protagonist is a little boy. The storyline is a fuzzing of superstition/imagination and real events.

[mishalak.livejournal.com]

I've seen all his movies. I saw Chronos in the theater when it first got a limited American release.