Ophelia and her flowers

Krystal 2021-10-13 13:05:30

It can bring you pain and sadness and scariness and happiness.
( It can bring you pain and sadness and scariness and happiness. )
——Ivana Baquero (The actor of Ofelia)


That was Spain in 1944, and the smoke of the civil war was not yet complete Disperse.
The main battles of the Spanish Civil War ended in 1939. That year, the Republican Army led by the leftist party was defeated. The fascist officers headed by General Franco overthrew the Second Spanish Republic and established a military dictatorship. The surviving Republican Army was forced to organize into small units to fight guerrillas in the mountains and forests. The military regime carried out a ruthless encirclement and suppression of the guerrillas to consolidate the fruits of victory.
The 14-year-old Ophelia took her book and followed her pregnant mother to the mountainous area where her stepfather, Captain Vidal, was stationed. The captain was ordered to encircle and suppress the guerrillas hiding in the mountains. He is an outstanding fascist soldier, self-disciplined, cold-hearted, persevering, courageous, and hard to get close to.
Ophelia, who loves to read fairy tales, found a dilapidated maze here. The beam at the entrance of the maze is engraved with a face of God Pan. Its eyes and mouth are three black holes, making this face appear sloppy and mysterious. In the very center of the maze, there is a round chamber underground. Down the stone ladder, in the center of the crypt is a mini puzzle disk. In the middle of the puzzle is a stone statue, on the top is the face of the same Pan with three black holes, and below is a girl with a baby in her arms.
Legend has it that the soul of the princess in the underground world is still wandering in the world, and her father and king have been waiting for her reincarnation, and then take her home. Ophelia saw an elderly Pan Shen in this maze. He will give Ophelia three tasks. If she can successfully complete these three tests before the full moon night, she can return to her father's palace.
From then on, the story began to jump back and forth between the magic kingdom and the mountain battlefield. For a while, the little lady fights the ugly toad; for a while, the guerrilla insiders try their best to smuggle letters, food and medicine; for a while, the little princess escapes from death under the hands of the White Devil, and for a while, the captain's bloody means of extorting a confession to the captive. On the night of the full moon, we witnessed the ending of this story indistinguishable from fantasy and reality. All this is so shocking.
In Shakespeare's masterpiece "Hamlet", Ophelia is the lover of Prince Hamlet. Hamlet pretended to be crazy for revenge and abandoned her. Later, the prince killed her father Polonius. Under the double blow, Ophelia fell into a real madness, and eventually fell and drowned while climbing and breaking the flowers.
The name "Ophelia" is like a huge shadow that always hangs over the little girl. The beautiful Ophelia was forced by reality into a person's whimsical world. She told her unborn brother a rose story. The rose that can give people immortality grows on the top of a high mountain. To get close to it will have to experience countless terrible hardships. People gradually forgot the original purpose and just passed on the difficulties from generation to generation. The rose that grows on the mountain and can bring immortality to people so lonely waits until the end of time.
The fairy tale Ophelia told her brother also hinted at the future of her early death. Ophelia in "Hamlet" fell into the river while folding flowers. Our Ophelia died while pursuing the immortal kingdom of her dreams.
They are not crazy, but the reality they are in.
At that time, people did not know whether they could see the sun tomorrow. Or they were reading newspapers and family letters in the cave yesterday, and today they died under the cold bullet. They all aspire to build a better country, but the path they choose prevents them from coexisting.
The cruelty in reality is that the soldiers will skillfully fire a shot on the head of the enemy's corpse on the battlefield to ensure that the battlefield is completely cleared-this is the fact that both sides act in unison regardless of political stance. The tools of torture are small and simple, but the effect is "good" and terrifying.
The cruelty in the magic is that the white devil who eats children has even the fingertips soaked in the color of black and purple by the blood of men who have been years old. Beside the ogre's dining table full of delicious food, there are hills of children's shoes.
The cruelest thing is that Ophelia was killed, she swallowed her last breath in the glory of the underground kingdom. And that world turned out to be just a fantasy of her loneliness.
The camera is calm and careful when telling these details. No sensationalism, no close-ups, no blurry shots, no emotions.
That's the end of the story of 1944. This year is still thirty-one years away from the day when General Franco and his regime will return to their lives. Many more children's lives will die quietly.

View more about Pan's Labyrinth reviews

Extended Reading
  • Maximo 2022-03-25 09:01:05

    A glimpse of World War II, Spain, where the international column also fought bravely, started with a small mill. Child, you have nowhere to escape in this troubled world, your father died young, your mother is seriously ill, fairy tales can't change the dark reality. You must not believe Pan's words completely. Those three tasks do not lead to the other side of happiness. Idealists always appear in the revolution as martyrs. The cloud of death hangs all day long. You will never see the future. .

  • Jerel 2021-10-20 18:59:25

    When I watched it, I felt vaguely unconscious and violent. After searching for relevant film reviews, I suddenly realized. It turned out to be a fairy tale interpretation of the history of the Spanish Civil War. The film is a fusion of reality and illusion, and it is also an intertextuality between dark fairy tales and dark history. The metaphor is very clever. If you don’t understand the history of the Spanish Civil War, this is just a general fantasy dark fairy tale, three-and-a-half

Pan's Labyrinth quotes

  • Mercedes: I'm a coward.

    Pedro: No, you're not.

    Mercedes: Yes, I am. A coward - for living next to that son of a bitch, doing his laundry, making his bed, feeding him... What if the doctor's right and we can't win?

    Pedro: At least we'll make things harder for that bastard.

  • Ofelia: [in the labyrinth] Hello?

    [Pan awakens]

    Pan: It's you!