Pans Labyrinth
Warning! Spoilers ahead!
The prologue tells of Princess Moanna, daughter to the king of the underworld. She became curious about the world above and fled to the surface, where the brightness of the sun blotted out her memories. Eventually growing old as a human, she died, causing turmoil in her kingdom. However, the king always believed that her spirit would one day return, reincarnated in the form of another.
The story cuts to post-Civil War Spain in 1944, after Francisco Franco has come into power. Ofelia, a young girl often absorbed in fairy tales, travels with her pregnant mother Carmen to meet Captain Vidal, her new stepfather and father of Carmen’s unborn child. Vidal, a fascist devotee, suffers from the repercussions of his father’s death as a famed commander in Morocco, and takes his feelings out on the Republican rebels he has been assigned to seek out and eliminate while stationed at a countryside mill.
On the way, Ofelia discovers a large insect resembling a praying mantis and walking stick bug, and she believes it to be a fairy. The creature follows the family to their new home, where it leads Ofelia to an ancient labyrinth. Before Ofelia can enter the labyrinth, she is stopped by Mercedes, one of Vidal’s maids and a spy for the rebels, who are led by her brother, Pedro. That night, the creature appears in Ofelia’s bedroom, where it morphs into a fairy and leads Ofelia through the labyrinth into a small clearing. There, she meets the faun, who recognizes her as the long-lost Princess Moanna and assigns her three tasks to complete before the full moon to ensure that her “essence is intact”.
The faun gives Ofelia the Book of Crossroads, which explains her tasks.
Ofelia completes the first task – retrieving a key from the belly of a giant toad – however, she fears for her mother, whose condition is worsening. The faun gives Ofelia a mandrake root, which instantly begins to cure her mother’s illness. Ofelia then manages to complete the second task – taking an ornate dagger from the lair of the Pale Man, a child-eating monster. Although she was warned to not consume anything there, she eats two of the Pale Man’s grapes as she leaves, awakening him and causing the deaths of two of the faun’s fairies. Infuriated by her disobeying his orders, the faun disappears, claiming that she will never return to her kingdom or see him again.
Meanwhile, Vidal becomes increasingly vicious in his methods, torturing a captured Republican and killing a doctor (a Republican sympathizer) who euthanized the prisoner (at the prisoner’s request) after the prisoner began to give Vidal information. Vidal catches Ofelia tending to the mandrake root, and Carmen, desperate to prove to her daughter that magic is not real, throws the root into the fireplace. Instantly, she develops painful contractions and dies giving birth to a son. Vidal discovers Mercedes is a rebel spy, and he captures her and Ofelia as they attempt to escape. Ofelia is locked in her bedroom, and Mercedes is taken to be tortured; however, she frees herself, injures Vidal and flees into the woods, where Pedro and the rebels rescue her.
The faun returns to Ofelia, claiming that he will give her one more chance to prove herself. He tells her to take her baby brother into the labyrinth. Ofelia manages to steal the baby after sedating Vidal; however, although disoriented, Vidal continues to chase her through the labyrinth amidst an attack on the mill by the rebels. Upon her arrival in the clearing, the faun demands that Ofelia spill her brother’s blood to open the portal to the underworld. Ofelia refuses to harm her brother, and the faun disappears, accepting her decision. Vidal finds her, takes the baby and shoots Ofelia. As he staggers out of the labyrinth, he finds the rebels waiting for him and, after handing them his son, is killed by Pedro.
As Mercedes enters the labyrinth and mourns over Ofelia’s dead body, Ofelia is reunited with the king and queen of the underworld. She learns that by spilling her own blood instead of her brother’s, she has proven herself to be the true Princess Moanna. The epilogue tells that Ofelia ruled the kingdom for many centuries, was adored by her people, and left behind little signs of her life on Earth, visible only to those who knew where to look.
