Pan's Labyrinth: The Labyrinth of the Faun

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It absolutely does–I love the film, so obviously that impacted my view of the book, but I don’t think you have to know the film at all to appreciate the book. They really are wonderfully complementary. (It’s been a long time since I last saw the film, so I can’t really remember how violent it was, but there were some scary parts!) Carmen had closed her eyes. At least when she was dreaming she saw more than this world, didn’t she? Ofelia wondered, pressing her cheek against her mother’s chest. So close, their bodies fusing into one, as they had been before she was born. Ofelia could hear the tide of her mother’s breath, the soft thumping of her heart beating so regularly, like a metronome against bone.

Not only are the adults in Ofelia’s life trying to convince her to fit in more with the adult world, but they also represent the authoritarian government of Spain. Vidal, Carmen’s new husband, is a Falangist and is working to hunt down rebels from the war, those who are still fighting the Francoist regime. Thus, the contrast and tension between the fantastical world, which so fascinates the young Ofelia, and the real world, the world that her mother has entered into by marriage, is analogous to the tension between the rebels—those who dream of a better political future for Spain—and the Falangists—upholders of the authoritarian and fascist government.

Ofelia’s next task is retrieving a dagger from an underground lair where a child-eating monster sits at a table full of food. In the process of procuring the dagger, Ofelia accidentally eats some food off the table, which is expressly forbidden, but still manages to escape. We see Captain Vidal, Carmen’s new husband, waiting for them at his residence, annoyed that they are fifteen minutes late. He greets Carmen and touches her belly, before inviting her to sit in a wheelchair, in spite of her insistence that she can walk. Ofelia gets out of the car and greets Vidal with the wrong hand. He notes this and calls to Mercedes, a servant, telling her to bring the luggage in. But her mother wouldn’t listen. Her name was Carmen Cardoso, she was thirty-two years old and already a widow and she didn’t remember how it felt to look at anything without despising it, without being afraid of it. All she saw was a world that took what she loved and ground it to dust between its teeth. So as Carmen Cardoso loved her daughter, loved her very much, she had married again. This world was ruled by men—her child didn’t understand that yet—and only a man would be able to keep them both safe. Ofelia’s mother didn’t know it, but she also believed in a fairy tale. Carmen Cardoso believed the most dangerous tale of all: the one of the prince who would save her.

The faun hands Ofelia The Book of Crossroads, which include the instructions for how to complete the three tasks. After he disappears, Ofelia opens the book and is confused to find that there is nothing inside. In the bathroom, Ofelia examines the book again, hoping for clues about her next task. The book fills with red the color of blood, and Ofelia closes it, frightened. When she goes into the next room, she finds her mother, bleeding profusely. I do,” Mercedes replied. “You’ll see, you will love your little brother. Very much. You won’t be able to help it.”As she gets out of the car, Ofelia sees the insect from the forest and tries to catch it, chasing it towards a grove of trees. There she sees a large stone archway with a screaming head above it, and the start of a stone labyrinth. Mercedes comes up behind her and tells her that it’s a labyrinth that’s been there a long time. “Better not go in there, you may get lost,” she says, as Vidal interrupts them. “The captain is not my father,” Ofelia tells Mercedes, elaborating that her father was a tailor who died in the war. The Faun was feeding the swarm of fairies that served him, when the sculptor walked in. The Faun fed them with his tears to remind them of Moanna, as fairies tend to be quite forgetful creatures. Vidal frowned. He hated anything interrupting his nightly ritual. “Come in!” he called, keeping his attention on the shiny workings of the watch. You have spilled your own blood rather than the blood of the innocent. That was your final task and most important." The King of the Underworld

Mercedes was standing behind her. The shawl draped across her shoulders looked as if she had woven it from woolen leaves. If she was an enchantress, she was a beautiful one, not old and withered as they mostly looked in Ofelia’s books. But she knew from the tales that enchantresses often didn’t wear their true faces. Ofelia felt reluctant to share her stories with him, but finally she sat up. Under the white sheets her mother’s body looked like a mountain covered in snow, her brother sleeping in its deepest cave. Ofelia put her head on the bump in the blanket, caressing it where her brother was moving, deep under her mother’s skin. Fool. Vidal walked toward the door, the smoke of his cigarette following him through the sparsely lit room. Vidal didn’t like lights. He liked to see his own darkness. He was almost at the door when Ferreira once again raised his annoyingly gentle voice.Ofelia bent down and closed her fingers around the stone. Time had covered it in moss, but when Ofelia brushed it off, she saw it was flat and smooth and that someone had carved an eye on it. It took Cintolo three days and three nights to finish the sculpture and, when he told the Faun to rise from his chair, so did his wooden image. Carmen is disappointed in Ofelia for dirtying the dress she gave her, and sends her to bed without supper. As Carmen leaves, the insect lands on the edge of the tub, and Ofelia tells it that she has procured the key and is ready to enter the labyrinth. The princess had been gone for 330 years when one night the Faun walked into Cintolo’s workshop, where the sculptor had fallen asleep amid his tools. He longed to comfort Their Majesties by chiseling Moanna’s countenance from a beautiful moonstone, but as hard as he tried, he couldn’t remember the princess’s face.