Pan's Labyrinth: is it all "in her head"?

I just recently re-watched one of my favorite Guillermo del Toro films, Pan’s Labyrinth. And of course, the big question in that movie is: are the fantasy creatures real, or is it all just in Ofelia’s head?

A lot has been said about this award-winning movie, which I won’t rehash. What really caught my attention was the interesting question of whether or not the fantasy elements of the story are real or whether or not they are merely in the imagination of the main character Ofelia, an impetuous and very imaginative child. Now, I will be getting heavy into spoiler material here, so if you haven’t seen the movie, go see it, and then come back!

The Plot

To recap the plot, Pan’s Labyrinth is a Spanish fantasy set in Francoist Spain in 1944–right after a civil war where a fascist regime has taken power, but rebels still roam the countryside fighting against the regime. Into this war-torn landscape, a girl named Ofelia comes with her very pregnant mother to live in an old house in the forest. Whereas Ofelia’s father is dead, her mother just recently re-married Vidal, a ruthless and cruel Francoist captain. Vidal is truly horrible and sadistic, having no qualms about gunning down innocents or torturing people at length. So, step-father of the year material. Ofelia’s mother is very pregnant with his child, and often sick, and Vidal seems to be only interested in fathering a son. Meanwhile guerilla fighters are camped in the woods, raiding the Francoists, often with explosive and bloody violence, right on their doorstep.

With this tumultuous backdrop, Ofelia discovers that the woods surrounding the old house is full of fairy creatures, and before long she meets a tall, terrifying-looking faun named Pan, who says she is actually the daughter of the King of the Underworld, who has been trapped in the human world in human form, but if she undertakes three tasks, she can reclaim her throne in the Underworld paradise. The movie begins and ends with this story, actually, after Vidal mercilessly shoots her at point blank range, after which we see the world melt into the Underworld, and Ofelia, having “shed innocent blood” (her own instead of her little brother’s), managed to accomplish the three tasks set to her by Pan. 

The Big Question

So here’s the big question: throughout the movie, Ofelia encounters grasshoppers that turn into fairies, a giant toad with a magic key inside it, magic chalk which transports her to different (and often scary) places, the “pale man”, a terrifying monster with eyes in his hands who loves to kill children, and of course Pan himself, an ambiguous figure who seems helpful and menacing at the same time. So, after it’s all over, we’re left with the question–is all the magical stuff real? Or is it just “in her head”? 

Well, if you know me, you know I have a serious problem with this question in general–the very question of whether or not imaginal creations are “real” is, in point of fact, a very modern invention. As I’ve discussed in lots of other videos, only in modern, industrialized and hyper-individualistic societies do we erect this giant wall between “real” and “imaginary”. Indigenous people and ancient civilizations, however, do not and did not do this. Such beings and powers were seen as simply part of the overall fabric of life, with its own set of special rules and reality. But for various historical and philosophical reasons, which we don’t need to get into the weeds with here, modern life seems to think these two ways of being in the world are rigidly opposed, mutually exclusive and fully asymmetrical–only the physical everyday world is “real”, and the world of imagination and dream is “just in your head”, which is a polite way of saying it’s pure shite and has no bearing on “reality” or being “realistic”. 

In a word, I call BS. There is SO MUCH to be gained by looking at imaginal creations as having a valid kind of reality that this worldview really does much more harm than good. Is it possible to get lost in ego fantasies and inflated wish-fulfilments? Sure. But if you avoid that and are able to get at the true products of the deeper imagination, and not just ego-boosting fluff, you get pure gold. 

One Interpretation

But that doesn’t answer the question about Pan’s Labyrinth. And, as you can imagine, many folks have chimed in here on this question, ranging from people saying the movie intends for the fantasy elements to be real, vs. others who say they are not. Del Toro is, of course, mum on this, like many writer-directors, preferring the audience to bring their own interpretations to the table. So let’s look at one interpretation by Jack Zipes, a prominent scholar of folktales. In his essay, he argues that all of the magical elements are entirely in Ofelia’s imagination. Now, to be fair, he is not saying that that is bad, in fact, he argues that the point of the film is to show how fairy tale story structures and fantasies can help us cope with harsh realities. He points out how using un-sanitized versions of the fairytales accomplish this because they are scary and dark, too, much like the human world of conflict and war that’s all around her. 

I agree with this interpretation–to a point. I think Zipes’ absolutely captures an essential element of the importance of fairytales as didactic tools. And this is a common theme throughout Zipes’s work–the didactic use of fairytales as vessels to convey cultural norms. And while I think, yes, that is ONE function of fairytales, there is MUCH more going on here than just that. To me, this framing of fairytales is much too reductive for my taste. It ignores the psychological, and even neuroscientific dimensions of what fairytales really are–highly concentrated dreams. Now, dreams, as you may know if you’re familiar with my work, are important as-if retellings of our life situation. They are symbolic and metaphorical because that is the language of the unconscious processing behind them. They’re pre-language, and use images to convey meaning. They use the incredible power of metaphor to encapsulate complicated situations, boiling them down into their essence, containing an ineffable core of meaning that cannot be conveyed any other way. 

So, in a sense, Zipes is right. Ofelia’s fantastical journeys help her to understand the confusing and terrifying situation she’s in. That is the function of the deeper imagination–the dream-making part of the mind. It’s as-if she is having to face dangerous fairy creatures and demanding authority figures like Pan. This isn’t wrong. It’s just incomplete in my view. Let’s take a look at the imagery del Toro uses to convey his story–because what we will see are symbols and metaphors that transcend both worlds, and we will see how the fairytale does, too. 

The Rest of the Story

First, lets look at the opening fairytale intro. A child of the Underworld King has been trapped in the human world. This is a very mythical retelling of the birth of consciousness from the unconscious. It follows patterns seen in creation myths all over the world, but placed onto the story of the protagonist. She is all of us. All of us emerge from the great mystery–symbolized by the timeless, eternal underworld (i.e., the collective unconscious)--into the world of time and space, the mortal, the physical. And this is where the some of the more subtle symbolism comes to play. Vidal is a symbol of this very world–he is obsessed with time, carrying a watch, worrying about mortality. But he is so awful because is a nihilist. All that matters to him is adhering to the party line without question. That may seem like idealism, but it’s not. It’s nihilism with a fancy mask on it. It pretends to believe in something, but it’s obvious that Vidal believes in nothing. Life has no value, only mindless obedience to authority matters to him. That is the world that Ofelia is plunged into–the modern, mortal world of fascist regimes in the 20th century, when fairytales are seen as “fake” or “childrens nonsense”. But Ofelia is special because she vehemently REJECTS this view. She recognizes the reality of the mind, the imaginal, the magical. And this is why she is “a princess of the underworld”. 

And yet, she has work to do to reclaim her throne in the world of the eternal–again, this is the journey we all must make to evade the traps of nihilism that exist in the regime of the movie (and still exist to this very day in other guises). Del Toro gives us hints that the magic is real, which is good, because that in many ways is the POINT of this movie, though he doesn’t spoon feed or hold our hands here. He maintains a lot of doubt about it because that is the challenge modern people face. Is it real? Ancient and indigenous people are not plagued with this sort of question. That’s not to say they are simple or “superstitious” or even always right about things. It’s just not a problem they have. But it IS a problem we have, and we are who this movie is for. 

This very situation is described in the story Ofelia tells her little brother, about the flower that exists at the top of the mountain of thorns. It provides immortality, but humankind has come to feel the effort required to get it is too much, too dangerous, too scary, and so fear keeps us from seeking it out anymore. This story encapsulates the entire movie–the “flower of immortality” is a symbol. Flowers are often symbols of union with the Divine, and the color suggests this as well–that of the sky. But in order to achieve this union, which Ofelia achieves in the end, you have to go through scary, dangerous “mountain of thorns”, which symbolizes the difficult spiritual and emotional work that is required. In the movie, however, Ofelia does this. Through sheer will, boundless curiosity, and stubborn independence, she does all three tasks. But she does it HER way, rather than simply lock-step with ANY authority figure, Vidal or Pan. Pan orders her to draw blood from her brother but she refuses, and interestingly enough, Vidal killing her is what leads her to shed the required blood to return to her throne. So Vidal and Pan are dark reflections of one another, in that both are obstacles, but also facilitators to the goal achieved at the end–they are personifications of the mountain of thorns. This fear and reluctance makes the flower wilt–which means avoidance of this journey makes achieving the goal of divine reunion more distant. So, even though Vidal can’t see Pan at the end–which might make you think Ofelia is imagining all this–another interpretation is that he can’t see Pan because in some ways he IS Pan, at least in terms of the role he plays in her psychological development.

Other Clues

There’s also the mandrake–the magic of the mandrake clearly works. It also screams and squirms when it is thrown into the fire. Now, is that part “only” seen by Ofelia? Del Toro doesn’t make it obvious either way. Then you have the chalk. She draws a doorway and it allows her to go into the magical worlds. Is it just her imagination? 

Which brings me to the ambiguous ending. Ofelia returns to a hyper-world of color, where her parents, obviously stylized heiros-gamos figures (that is, figures of the alchemical wedding, or union of opposites to the greater whole which leads to union of the alchemist and the Divine). Death leads her to a reunion of the soul and The One. Notice behind the king and queen is a mandala–a classic symbol of the Divine Union, found in similar forms all over the world in unrelated cultures. This symbolizes not only Divine Union spiritually, but psychologically the union of the conscious ego (the mortal aspect of ourselves) with the deeper, higher Self that we all move toward throughout life. Through the grueling journey, both in the external world of fascists and rebels, and the inner world of demons and monsters, she achieves the union, and it leads to a death-and-rebirth scene. 

The Magical Ending?

But, you might say, Ofelia is dead! Yes. And so her story is one of a Christ-like, or Buddha-like, or any other number of death-and-rebirth figures in mythology-like sacrifice. And we know this because the flower of immortality blooms as a result, now becoming available to all of us, “should we know where to look”. Ofelia’s journey shows us how we don’t have to be trapped in the mortal world of time and space, rigid, linear, and painfully isolated, limited, and full of nihilistic despair. We can ALSO live in the magical world of connection, the Eternal, part of the greater unity of the universe, in all its messy, light-and-dark glory. 

So, for me, the question of whether or not the magic in Pan’s Labyrinth is “real” is in some ways a false dichotomy, and I think that is entirely the point that Del Toro was trying to make, consciously or maybe even unconsciously. Yes, it is. But it’s not “real” in the same way that the mortal, linear, time-bound world is. It’s real in a different way, but just as real. 

EG