The Guardian 31 January, 2007
Film Review by Jules Andrews
Pan’s Labyrinth (El Laberinto del Fauno)
A common misconception is that when Franco defeated the republican government in the Spanish Civil War all opposition to his regime capitulated — after all, there were greater threats looming over the world at the time. However, spurred on by Churchill’s promise to rid Europe of Fascism, numerous small guerrilla groups clung to the hope that Spain too would be freed from that scourge.
When I walked into the cinema to see Pan’s Labyrinth I was under the impression that it was going to be the story of young girl who escapes the trauma of war by slipping in and out of a Narnia-type fantasy world, a secret underground kingdom where she befriends a friendly but scary-looking animated character called Pan.
This was true, to an extent.
However, the great bulk of the story is very much based in reality — in 1944 during the violent aftermath of Franco’s victory in Spain.
With her mother newly-married to a captain in Franco’s army — a marriage based on economic necessity rather than love — Ofelia immerses herself in fairy tale story books to escape her new brutish step-father and the life he is dragging her into.
Capitán Vidal has been assigned to barracks in the countryside to command a unit of fascist soldiers in a "mopping up" action against a band of local resistance fighters. In a perverse act of patriarchal pride and nationalism he brings his heavily-pregnant and very ill wife along with Ofelia to live at his quarters.
Little attempt is made — or even possible — to shield Ofelia from the horrors surrounding her, until even her one escape — her fairy tale books — turns against her.
There are two worlds in this film, both with their own horrors.
This film is not The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. It is not for the faint hearted nor those with queasy stomachs.
Pan is not so much a "friend" as a facilitator on her trips to the underworld. Her visits there are not always voluntary, she is set a range of tasks to accomplish and the other creatures that inhabit the world range from spooky to terrifying.
However, the events unfolding in the real world around her — Franco’s Spain — are much worse.
History has recorded in great detail the crimes against humanity committed by Franco and his army of fascist "nationalist" forces. To achieve this victory he called on one of the greatest war criminals of all time, Adolf Hitler, for assistance.
Franco offered up the Basque city of Guernica — a stronghold of both the Basque republicans and Communist Party — to be bombed flat by both the the German Luftwaffe and the Italian Air Force on April 26, 1937.
Initially Franco attempted to blame the Communists for the destruction of the city saying they had lain bombs in the sewers beneath the city. This version of the event did not wash with either the Basque or Spanish populations.
At the Nuremberg Trials, the then-marshall of the Luftwaffe, Hermann Göerring declared: "The Spanish Civil War gave me an opportunity to put my young air force to the test, and a means for my men to gain experience."
It was with this same enthusiasm that Capitán Vidal and his contingent to their their own set task.
Pride and cold-heartedness blinds the Capitán to his wife’s suffering. It also allows him to carry out acts of extreme violence against the freedom-fighters who continue to oppose Franco’s regime.
Yet that same pride blinds him to the fact that all those who fight evil may not necessarily carry a gun.
Sometimes it is possible for numerous small acts by numerous "insignificant" people to bring down a mountain.
Torture, religion and economics
The brutality depicted in Pan’s Labyrinth — and carried out by Franco’s regime — is but a blip on the horizon of that inflicted by one human being on another over the epochs of human civilisation.
"Human rights" as we know them today has been the subject of debate and essays left to us from the ancient Greek philosophers down through time — significantly through Marx and Engels — until today.
The first thoroughly articulated definition of those rights was only drafted and internationally recognised in the aftermath of World War II and the Holocaust, in the 1948 United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Even since then additions have been made to the concept, including the Convention Against Torture in 1984.
In Medieval times torture was believed to be sanctioned by God — witness the Inquisition of the Catholic Church which began in Spain in 1478. Torture was a tool used by the church in carrying out His work, and therefore the names, accusations, and the methods of torture used to extract confessions — and even graphic depictions of the acts themselves — were kept as a record of God’s work being carried out.
However there was an economic motive for this too — using the "sanctioned by God" authority of the Inquisition the Spanish royality drove the Jews and Muslims out of Spain and stole their homes and businesses.
In more recent times extremist regimes, driven by either religious or political ideologies, have taken no shame in meticulously keeping records of their own crimes against humanity: notably amongst them the reports sent back to Berlin by the Nazi SS on how many Jews, Gypsies, communists, homosexuals and disabled people it had "cleansed" from each town; and the auto-genocide in Kampuchea under Pol Pot.
A signature on a treaty, however, does not necessarily guarantee full acceptance or adherence to its terms. Now, in the 21st Century, it appears that our "civilisation" is backsliding into darker times.
Torture is once again no dirty secret to be hidden and carried out in shame. The United States openly flaunts its torture centre at Guantánamo Bay on the world stage. Like years gone by when the bodies of the dead were left hanging in the town square as a warning to others, George W Bush proudly flaunts Guantánamo as a warning and reminder to the whole world that: "Those who are not with us are against us" — and those who are against the US forfeit all their rights to be treated as a living human being.
After already having detained prisoners of war at Guantánamo for five years without bringing charges against them or holding trials, the United States Government has now announced that when the trials do begin even further internationally recognised legal standards will be thrown out the window.
Returning to the days of the Spanish Inquisition and the Salem witch hunts "hearsay" evidence will now be admissible, along with "coerced" testimony.
The US Government explains to the public that these measures will allow the courts to deal more efficiently with the legal proceedings, allowing the innocent to be freed and deal swift justice to those found guilty.
Proudly declaring its support for these newly defined legal standard of "justice" is Australia’s own extreme reactionary government. Trying to calm the growing public outrage over the continued detention of Australia’s sole detainee, David Hicks, the government has announced that legal proceedings are already in motion and that it expects charges to be laid against him by mid February.
No doubt were he alive today, Franco would be proudly standing alongside the US government.
As we share the fictional Ofelia’s anguish and despair 1944 Spain, we must not forget the children in our own world — the child-soldiers recruited by transnational corporations to fight oil and diamond wars in Africa, those being shot for defending their homes from being bulldozed in Palestine, those playing in depleted uranium dust across the Middle East, and the millions slowly starving to death across the world as the International Monetary Fund and World Bank steal the crops from their fields and deliver them to Western dinner tables.
A Spanish/Mexican/US collaboration, Pan’s Labyrinth has been acclaimed worldwide as an outstanding work of cinema, with awards and nominations for the film, director, actors, screenplay, cinematography, special effects and score.
Many of those nominations are for the outstanding achievement of 12-year-old Ivana Baquero in the role of Ofelia.
Rated MA15+ for strong violence, Pan’s Labyrinth is now showing Australia-wide though all cinema chains but only in selected locations.