El Laberinto Del Fauno (English Translation: Pan's Labyrinth) (2006) is written and directed by one of my favorite screenwriters: Guillermo del Toro. The movie won three Oscars for Best Achievement in Cinematography (Guillermo Navarro), Best Achievement in Art Direction (Eugenio Caballero (art director), Pilar Revuelta (set decorator)), and Best Achievement in Makeup (David Martí, Montse Ribé), and 107 more awards from 2006-2020 where Guillermo del Toro won the José María Forqué Award at the María Forqué Awards. Del Toro is a Mexican film director, producer, screenwriter, and author best known for The Shape of Water (2017) which won the Oscars for Best Director and Best Picture. El Laberinto Del Fauno drew inspiration from Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland, The Devil's Backbone (2001), Jorge Luis Borges' Ficciones, Arthur Machen's The Great God Pan and The White People, Lord Dunsany's The Blessing of Pan, Algernon Blackwood's Pan's Garden and Francisco Goya's works. The movie was well received by critics worldwide, sitting on the 148th spot on IMDb's Top 250 Films list.
The film stars Ivana Baquero in her debut role as Ofelia. She was supported by the performances from Sergi López, Maribel Verdú, Doug Jones, and Ariadna Gil. The movie was shot entirely in a Scots Pine forest situated in the Guadarrama mountain range, Central Spain. El Laberinto Del Fauno follows the story of a bookish young stepdaughter of a sadistic army officer who escapes into an eerie but captivating fantasy world. Set in Falangist Spain of 1944, the army officials overlook Ofelia, her mother, and Mercedes. What is the significance of the rose's story in the movie, and how does it directly connect to Ofelia's life?
In literature, roses often symbolize love and beauty; therefore, they represent ladies, femininity, and womanhood. Roses are a frequently used flower symbol. From a Christian perspective, a rose is a symbol of heaven and harmony in the world; it is also considered the flower of the Virgin Mary. The color of the rose is significant, too. Red roses often symbolize romantic love, selflessness, sacrifice, while white roses signify purity, charm, silence, reverence, humility, youthfulness, or innocence. Like other plants, a rose can carry overtones of growth and renewal. The rose's thorns represent how nothing is perfect; thus, the expression "every rose has its thorn." In the rose's biology, the thorns are used to cling onto other vegetation or protect themselves. Its prickles are also capable of causing sporotrichosis, an infection caused by a fungus called Sporothrix; thus, rose bushes can also provide a barrier.
The symbolism of the rose tends to focus on their beauty. People tend to focus on its petals and disregard the thorns. Not Ofelia's rose. Ofelia tells the story of the rose to her mother as a bedtime story.
OFELIA: A long, long time ago in a gray sad country there was a magic rose that made whoever plucked it immortal. But no one would dare go near it because its thorns were full of mortal poison. So amongst the men tales of pain and death were told in hushed voices. But there was no talk of eternal life for men fear pain more than they want immortality. So every day the rose wilted, unable to bequeath its gift to anyone. Alone and forgotten at the top of that mountain…forgotten until the end of time.
While the rose might offer eternal life, its thorns and poisonous mountain promises enough pain that men won't even go near it. Note the color of the rose in the story too. It isn't a typical red, white, or pink. It's blue. Blue roses represent fantasy and something unattainable in literature and mythology, much like the rose in Ofelia's story.
The rose, often a feminine symbol, could represent Ofelia's journey to adulthood. But her journey is thick with pain, fear, and suffering. She doesn't want to attain womanhood like Mercedes and Carmen. The rose's thorns symbolize both the scary physical changes like puberty (menstruation) and men, who pollute the world of women with war and misogyny. But Ofelia never makes this journey; she never gets the chance. And while she's alive, she spends her time running in the opposite direction of adulthood—back into her comfortable childhood innocence, an innocence alluded to by the narrator's description of the pain and lie-free Underground Realm.
The film uses subtitles for its translation into other languages, including English. Del Toro wrote them himself because he was disappointed with the subtitles of his previous Spanish movie, The Devil's Backbone. He stated in an interview that they were "for the thinking impaired" and "incredibly bad." To remedy the situation, he spent one month working with two other people to make sure that El Laberinto Del Fauno did not "feel like watching a subtitled film." And it worked! I love El Laberinto Del Fauno. I've watched it four times now, and it is so phenomenal and unique that I feel like I'm watching it for the first time.
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