Pan's Labyrinth

This movie incorporated a lot of fantasy into the film, like what we saw from Grimm’s Fairy Tales. In the beginning it talked about a Princess who had escaped, and was blinded by the sun and erased her memory, and then she died. The Father was a King, and knew the daughter would return in another baby. Ofelia was seen as the girl who was the princess of their world, and she was the one who needed to complete three tasks. In the beginning of the movie, we see a sense of fairytales. She finds the fairy, and goes into the labyrinth. Instead of having an evil stepmother, she had like an evil step father type figure, the captain. He didn’t care if Carmen died, he just wanted her to have a son. To me, Mercedes was like a servant, just like in these Grimm’s stories, or even Disney movies. She would have to clean the house, make the beds, bring the food, and she wasn’t happy being there. Ofelia would talk to her brother in her mom’s stomach, tell a fairytale story of a magic rose with poison thorns.
The Faun in the Labyrinth told Ofelia she needed to complete 3 tasks before the moon becomes full. Like in the Grimm’s fairytales, everything happens in threes. In the first task in the Book of Crossroads, she needed to throw 3 magic stones into the frogs mouth to receive a key. This book reminded me of Harry Potter with the diary, because it would show up with writing from blank pages. Again, with the number three in these fairy tales. When I first saw the frog, it reminded me of the Frog Prince. Ofelia completed the task, throwing the stones in the mouth, and retrieving the key. For the second task, the Faun gives Ofelia chalk to draw a door. Since this was the second task, it would become more difficult for Ofelia to go through with it. When Ofelia saw the blood in the book, I instantly thought death or violence was coming up. The mother ended up bleeding a lot. Another time I was reminded of Harry Potter was when the Faun gave Ofelia the mandrake root for the mother to put in milk and a couple drops of blood. The second task, Ofelia was warned not to eat the food from the feast. This instantly reminded me of Snow White, with the poisoned apple. For this task, she had to come back before the hourglass was finished. The guy who was at the table was pretty creepy, had eyes on the table. Ofelia found a dagger in one of the locks. There were three locks, and three fairies, again with the emphasis on the number three. When he chased after Ofelia once she ate the food, he would go after her with the eyes in his hands to guide him. I thought this part was pretty funny of watching him chase her. Ofelia almost failed this task, by not listening to the Faun, and eating the fruit. This goes along with the Grimm’s stories again by the role of women in the stories, she doesn’t think. If the fairies weren’t there to help her, like the dwarfs in Snow White, she would have failed. Since Ofelia failed at this task by eating the grape, the Faun said she would die like everyone else. The last chance Ofelia had of completing the task was to bring her baby brother to the labyrinth. She promised to do everything he asked. Though when it came the time to give the Faun her brother, she didn’t want to. She didn’t trust the Faun, but the captain came and shot Ofelia.
At the end of the movie when Ofelia was shot, she was brought into this world of fantasy of being the princess, and her parents were there on high chairs, (again there were three chairs). But in reality, she was still lying on the ground, dead. There wasn’t that much of a happy ending here, the ending of the movie was similar to the beginning, when it showed Ofelia all bloody. Though Mercedes was able to take the baby boy.