WEBVTT

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
i think its okay to start my analysis

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
of guilermo del toros Pan labyrinth

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
with a spoiler

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
ophelia - the main character...

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
she dies at the end

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
i feel fine doing that

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
because del toro does the exact same thing with his movie

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
the first shot of pan`s labyrynth

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
is the ending

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and it`s also the first way in which Del toro

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
complicates that ending

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
but before we get into that

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
a few things about fairy-tales

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
for most of us the authoritative source

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
for fairy-tales is walt disney

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and that`s no accident

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
disney set out to claim that authority

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
when he made films like snow white, cinderella

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
or sleeping beauty

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
by adapting folk tales in the public domain

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and copywriting the adaptations

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
still, because film was a relatively new media

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
capturing tha authority he wanted required Disney

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
to remain faithful to the original versions

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
of these stories popularized by charles piero

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and brothers grimm

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
he made the transition from print to cinema

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
as smooth as possible for the audience

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
even going so far as to begin his movies with

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
the oppenning of a book

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Disney was smart

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
his films are now regarded as classics

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and yet, by remaining so faithful to the stories

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
19-centure antecedents

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
he inherited and furthered their 19th century

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
morality

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
a conservative, patriarchal value system

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
in which the prince always comes to save

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
the helpless heroine

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
a value system that was antiquated even then

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
in this way, disney limited the kinds of things

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
a fairy-tale can do

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
in Pan`s labyrinth guilermo del toro attempts

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
to explode these limitations and he does so

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
by recontextualising the stories

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
instead of pulling from a single authoritative source

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
del toro pulls from a huge number of sources

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
giving non-precedence over the others

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and letting them all play against one another

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
to create meaning

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
the film tells the story of the little girl

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
offelia and her mother Carmen

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
as they go to live a hyper-fashist captain Vidall

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
five years after the spanish civil war

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
vidall is trying to snugg out the last remnants

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
of rebellion in the mountains awaiting his childs birth

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
by carmen

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
while Ophelia becomes ensnared in a magical quest

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
after a faun tells her she is the lost princess

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
of an underground realm

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
from here the story spins out into two paralles narratives

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
the magical quest and the political drama

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
crucially, neither of these narratives becomes reducable

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
to the other

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
del toro makes a point of this

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
by entwaining them in ways, that makes

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
any totalizing explanation problematic

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
at the end of the film for exampe we get what seems to be

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
a nail in the coffin for the magical quest

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
vidall approachers ophelia speaking with the faun

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and when the camera cuts to his point of view

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
the faun is not there

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
it appears to be solid evidence for those who read

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
ophelias quest as a coping mechanism for her sad life

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
but, if we back up, we can see how del toro

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
complicates that reading by remembering

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
that vidall has just been drugged with a heavy dose of sleeping medication

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
in other stories, drug induced gallucinations

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
are used to explain a way why people see supernatural

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
but in pans labyrinth it`s the opposite

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
del toro uses the device to destabilize our trust

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
in captain vidalls point of view