24° TORINO FILM FESTIVAL

El Laberinto del Fauno

Pan's Labyrinth

Country: Angola
Year: 2006
Duration: 114'


Spain, 1944. The civil war is officially over, but a small group of Republicans continue to fight in the mountains north of Navarra. The young girl Ofélia and her mother, Carmen, who is pregnant, move to these mountains to live with the girl’s new stepfather, the fascist captain Vidal, who is leading the offensive against the rebels. The man is stern and inflexible with Ofélia, and in order to escape his control, the girl abandons herself to her passion for the world of fairytales and thus discovers an ancient labyrinth in which she meets Pan, who reveals to her her true identity.

“The film takes place during Franco’s time and thus deals with fascism. To me, fascism is the representation of total horror and is, therefore, a perfect theme for an adult fairytale. In fact, it is, above all, a form of repression of innocence and thus of childhood, which consumes a person’s soul before it consumes his body. I dealt with this idea in El espinazo del diablo, but I think I have expressed it better in El laberinto del fauno, which is a more gloomy and complex film.” (G. del Toro)

Biography

film director

Guillermo Del Toro

Guillermo del Toro (Guadalajara, Mexico, 1964) began working at the postproduction of Mexican films and of the serial La hora marquada, directing a few of the show’s episodes. He worked ad a film critic for “Sight and Sound” and “The Village Voice” and has also written a book about Hitchcock. Del Toro directed his first film in 1993, Cronos, which was selected at Cannes and won nine Arieles, the Mexican Oscar. He confirmed this success in 1997 with Mimic and in 2001 with El espinazo del diablo, produced by Pedro Almodóvar. After making Blade II (2002) and after refusing to direct the third Harry Potter episode, he completed Hellboy (2004), based on the comic strip by Mike Mignola. El laberinto del fauno competed at the 2006 Festival of Cannes.

FILMOGRAFIA

Cronos (1993), Mimic (id., 1997), El espinazo del diablo (id., 2001), Blade II (id., 2002), Hellboy (id., 2004), El laberinto del fauno (2006)

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