Believe it or not, it's a cross between "Harry Potter: POA" and "Schindler's List". Fantasy but heavy-duty war drama at the same time.

At the end, when Vidal comes to take away back his son from Ofelia in the labyrinth, he sees (and we see with him) Ofelia simply talking to herself. I would have preferred that she finished her conversation with the faun, it left, and then Vidal showed up.

The reality of the fairy tale is still ambiguous but doing it the way he did tipped it a bit more in the direction of unreal than I'd have preferred.

I think it was intentional that her father didn't see the faun. I think it was all in her mind. It's sad, but I think that was intentional. Shrug.

That is certainly a reading of it, but I don't think it was Guillermo del Toro's intent to settle the question. He has been talking a lot lately about film not needing to lay everything out for you, that it is good to be presented with a story and then you go away thinking it out on your own what happened, what it means.

But I have only been catching side conversations since I was avoiding specific spoilers. So if he was trying to answer the question he didn't go quite far enough and I'd prefer ambiguity because it makes it more interesting.

Ambiguity still exists, I just feel like del Toro was "taking sides." And of course, if anybody gets to take a side, it is him, but I don't want him to.

I hear ya. I'm not a big fan of films leaving it all up to you. Was it a dream, was it real, etc. I think a filmmaker needs to spell it out. Leaving it up to the audience means many different interpretations, many ways of looking at something. I like it to be clear cut, I like to see the director make a choice. I think he could have gone deeper into it, too. But I'm okay with that scene.

It didn't bother me that Capt Vidal didn't see the Faun. The Faun was magical (assuming it was real), so he wouldn't have seen it anyway. I liked the "ambiguity" of the story, but prefer to think of it as different perceptions of reality rather than ambiguity. I imagine that the fantasy part of the movie was very real to Ofelia, and the "real" part was true for Mercedes et al.

As far as renaming the movie for Pan, I'm pretty sure that del Toro made that decision - he's fluent in English - though I'm not sure why.

It doesn't bother me that the Captain can't see the faun. It's not the deciding factor on whether the faun was real or not. Perhaps only open minds can see the 'magic.'

What I thought was interesting was her death. Was the vision of her mother and her father on the throne the culmination of her returning as the princess, or just the hallucinations of a dying girl?

the ending of the film - how it was left rather ambiguous whether she had imagined the whole fantasy world or not (though, of course, "It was real" and "it was imaginary" are NOT the only two options!!!).



Guillermo Del Toro himself interprets the film as being all real -- I'm not going to go into the whole thing here, but the best director's interview I have read on the subject is at http://www.twitchfilm.net/archives/008507.html . The director left three little "clues" to let you know that HE thinks the fantasy world is all real (read the interview), but it can be interpreted another way. That's the beauty of this film -- it is so multilayered that you can interpret the symbolism of the characters and the fantasy world for yourself.



There are a lot of idiots on the IMDB board that are talking about... "well, if the director thinks it's real, it's real!!! End of story!!" Sorry, but that is total crap. If you can back up what you say, then the director's intent, while interesting from a filmmaking standpoint, has very little or nothing to do with whether an interpretation is "correct".



Certainly, asking whether it was real or imagined, or some of the fantasy was real, and some imagined, or whether it was all imagined (even the "war" parts), etc. etc. are all valid explorations and can lead to wildly varying, equally valid interpretations.

One thing that had me puzzled until this morning is the question of the key going into a lock that's different than the one the fairies pointed out (in the room with the Pale Man monster). If you're of the interpretation that the fantasy world was real, I think that the "test" in that room was not necessarily to retrieve the object, but to see if she'd simply follow blind faith instead of going by her own instincts. In that respect... she "passed" the second of three tests. She had to come into the third test in a mental state of desperation, which is why the faun disappeared on her after the second test. The fairies that got eaten, as immortal beings (like Ofelia/The Princess) show up in the end, after Ofelia's immortal soul passes the third test and leaves her body.


I'm still trying to figure out the meaning of that part if you thought it was all in her head -- would the pale man represent her stepfather, perhaps? What was happening in that movie that would "parallel" that event? What does the key, or the key in the different lock show?

Though if Tinkerbell got her head gnawed off by the Pale Man, that'd be pretty fuk'n cool ;)

And though I can fully accept Ofelia's fantasy as being real, I prefer my gut reaction, which was that it all came from her imagination, her return to the Underworld being the last thought she had in death. I can see it both ways, and both are supported, but my way of thinking - not being spiritual or religious, but quite the escapist - the sadder reality works better for me. Her story was a tragedy, though the film still ends uplifting. Because whether or not I believe the fantasy as real, her character did. And she believed she was returned home and reunited with her family...so she was. I still mourned her death.

I interpreted the fantasy part of the story as a creation of Ofelia as an alternate and better situation than where she was residing in reality. At one point Captain Vidal and the Faun actually emit the exact same words (about obediance). I think that's when I became aware that these two places were parellel universes - one reality and one her twist on that reality. The Faun being her challenger that we was able to conquor and achieve some good - a choice she didn't seem to have in her reality.

However, I like the fact that is is a possible interpretation but yet there is still a lot of ambiguity. Things don't line up nicey and I prefer that over having everything all wrapped up in a neat package that you never have to think about again.

I LOVED the fairy-eating monster. He was straight out of mythology and fairy tales with a twist. He didn't diasppoint. The Faun, however, was my least favorite character to watch. He was just too mechanical - a mish mash of all sort of different contemporary fantasy character archtypes. There was some alien mixed with some War of the Worlds monster with a bit of Yoda thrown in and a dash of a few other comtemporary creations. I found him to be way too distracting for my tastes.

In the context of the film, both worlds are a fantasy, a fiction of cinema and thus equal in this deconstructed concept. I think our interpretation reveals more about our selves as the film poses an interesting question as to why anyone would chose to live in the world of reality full of pain, suffering, and death when another world (heaven/underworld) exists, or can be willed into existence (faith/belief). I think it also interesting to note that in Franco's Spain, the Fascists win, so even the brief victory/justice in the real world of the film are fleating