The Film

Note: this portion of the review is largely the same as what I wrote for my coverage of the Region 1 DVD release, here.

As part of the triumvirate of Mexican filmmakers that also includes Alfonso Cuarón and Alejandro González Iñárritu, Guillermo Del Toro is undoubtedly the fantasist. Like Cuarón, whose work includes both the intimate, independent Y Tu Mamá También and the blockbuster Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Del Toro has managed to carve a successful career in both Hollywood and the world of independent filmmaking, contrasting big budget commercial ventures like Blade II and Hellboy with lower key, more personal material like Chronos and The Devil's Backbone. And yet, despite flitting between two decidedly different industries, his films always bear the same distinctive stamp: a sense that he is able to invest his own personal view in the most commercial of films, while at the same time ensuring that his more personal projects still have considerable audience appeal. Ultimately, Del Toro is perhaps best described as someone who makes artistic commercial films and commercial art films.

Pan's Labyrinth reflects the zenith of this synthesis. When you actually boil down the individual components, it really shouldn't work as mainstream, crowd-pleasing entertainment: quite apart from the dialogue being spoken in a language other than English (still often the kiss of death for the US box office), its distinctive interpretation of fairytale mythology could potentially be quite off-putting to those raised in the Disneyesque tradition, believing that fables like Alice in Wonderland and Red Riding Hood are safe and cozy, and that fairytales are only for children. Pan's Labyrinth is most assuredly not a children's film: it is a dark fairytale for adults and one that has managed to succeed both critically and commercially, on its own terms.


Taking place in 1944, at the height of the Spanish civil war, the film revolves around Ofelia (Ivana Baquero), a precocious young girl with a fascination for fairytales and make-believe. While she and her heavily pregnant mother, Carmen (Ariadna Gil), are staying with her new stepfather, the cruel Captain Vidal (Sergi López), in an isolated house in the countryside, Ofelia comes into contact with an ancient faun (Doug Jones, behind several layers of prosthetics), who informs her that she is in fact the daughter of the King of the Underworld, and must return to her rightful place. As conflict rages in the world outside, with Vidal his men determined to stamp out the rebel presence in the local woods through any means necessary, Ofelia descends deeper and deeper into the world of the supernatural, which increasingly comes to mirror reality, or vice versa.

This is a film that has been marketed almost exclusively around its fantasy content, but in reality this is somewhat misleading. While it is certainly true that a considerable amount of the film involves mysterious, otherworldly creatures and spectacular locales, the bulk of its running time actually takes place in a world that is all too real. By setting the fantasy elements against the backdrop of the Spanish Civil War, which is portrayed very convincingly and with commendable attention to detail, they take on an air of authenticity that they arguably would not have had if set in the present day. Del Toro cleverly deconstructs the traditional fairytale structure, blending elements from Alice in Wonderland, Red Riding Hood and even, to some extent, more recent fare such as The Chronicles of Narnia, creating reflections of several fairytale staples in the real world. The cruel and relentless Captain Vidal, for example, represents the Big Bad Wolf, while Ofelia is fairly obviously the Alice/Red Riding Hood/Snow White surrogate. Even subtle details in the production design, such as the manner in which the layout of the monstrous Pale Man's dining room mimics that of Captain Vidal (which might not be noticed on first or even second and third viewings of the film), add to the film's texture and demonstrate the extent to which Del Toro has taken pains to create a thread of cohesion to the two worlds.


In a sense, it's easy to see why the advertising, and the majority of the reviews, have focused so heavily on the fantasy: while the material set in the real world is gripping, immaculately shot and powerfully acted, the scenes taking place in the fairytale world are on another level entirely. The production is exquisite, the sheer attention to detail often breathtaking, and the various creatures that Ofelia meets, especially the faun and the Pale Man, are astounding not only for their imaginative design but also for their acting. Both are played by Doug Jones, with whom Del Toro also worked on Mimic and Hellboy, and each exhibit completely individual personalities. The Pale Man especially is a masterpiece: clearly the product of a warped imagination, this faceless monster, excess skin drooping from its gaunt frame, sees by placing detached eyes in stigmata wounds in its hands. The extended sequence revolving around this character is like something out of a nightmare: totally unreal and yet at the same time instantly recognisable to anyone familiar with Grimm's fairytales.

To some extent, you can argue that Del Toro overplays his hand by attempting to draw parallels between fantasy and reality. In interviews, he has argued convincingly that the horrors of fairytales provide an outlet for our fears and help us to understand the horrors of reality, but, as Peter Bradshaw pointed out in his review in The Guardian, the creatures don't really have anything to say about the fascism of 1944 Spain, and vice versa. Likewise, his claims that, in order to preserve the fairytale structure the characters must remain somewhat two-dimensional don't ring entirely true. Additionally, as brilliant as the practical effects and make-up are, certain elements, particularly the fairies that "guide" Ofelia and a giant toad that she encounters, are obviously computer generated. But these are small fry in the grand scheme of things: Pan's Labyrinth is definitely one of the best fantasy-oriented horror films in recent years, and one which comes very close to being a masterpiece.

HD DVD Presentation

Pan's Labyrinth is presented in 1080p using the VC-1 codec, in an aspect ratio of 1.78:1, which is reasonably close to its intended theatrical ratio of 1.85:1. It's a good transfer, but one with some noticeable flaws, most noticeably a strange "eroded" appearance that appears to be the result of attempting to suck out the film grain. As a result, textures tend to look a bit waxy and "cut-out", particularly faces, while a lot of the fine detail has been removed from the foliage in the scenes taking place in the woodland. It's a strange effect, as it means there is a superficial sense of crispness, but not the sort of detail you would expect from an image so sharp. As with the DVD release, the contrast appears to be slightly higher than "normal", resulting in some blown-out whites and a loss of shadow detail, but as far as I can gather this is an accurate representation of Del Toro's intentions. There are no problems with the compression.

Audio, meanwhile, comes in the form of a single Dolby Digital-Plus 5.1 track, which improves somewhat in terms of clarity and depth of field on the DTS-ES 6.1 Discrete track found on the US DVD release, although it obviously lacks the additional rear channel. As good as the track sounds, though, the knowledge that New Line are currently prepping their own HD DVD and Blu-ray releases, to include a DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1 track, makes it difficult not to feel slightly short-changed here in the UK. More significantly, the track is slightly desynchronised from the video, with the image lagging slightly behind throughout, resulting in some noticeable lip synchronisation errors (particularly apparent given the rapid-fire Spanish in which most of the characters converse). It's not enough to ruin the presentation, but if you are sensitive to such issues, it will probably be quite annoying.

Optional English subtitles are provided, which are crisp, legible and appropriately placed within the frame.

Extras

Given that Studio Canal and Optimum's high definition releases have, so far, been predominantly bare-bones, is comes as something of a pleasant surprise to discover that, for the HD DVD of Pan's Labyrinth, all of the extras from their 2-disc standard definition release have been ported over, barring bonus trailers for The Devil's Backbone and the cover art of Cronos.

First up is a video prologue by Guillermo Del Toro, which is slightly different from the one included on American releases, but along similar lines and of similarly brevity. He returns later for an audio commentary, which turns out to be one of the best I've heard so far this year. Del Toro is always an engaging, intelligent and humorous speaker, and he keeps the track ticking over single-handedly, with nary a moment of silence throughout its two-hour duration. In addition to discussing issues such as the financial problems when putting the project together, the actors, and the challenges of working the fairytale narrative into the real world material, he goes to considerable lengths to deconstruct the structure, calling attention to the moments in which the real and make-believe worlds mirror each other, and pointing out the parallels between the characters in the film and their fairytale archetypes. Some might consider Del Toro to be revealing his hand here, and that such subtleties should be left to the viewer to discover in their own time, but personally this track left me with a new appreciation of the sheer amount of detail that had been put into the film.

Up next is a UK-exclusive interview with Del Toro. Conducted by Mark Kermode, this effervescent chat session runs for just under half an hour and is filled with enjoyable anecdotes. Del Toro himself is on fine form, frequently making the audience laugh with stories about his childhood and his thoughts on his various films. Particularly amusing is his declaration that two traumatic things have happened in his life: the kidnapping of his father, and working with Miramax on Mimic.


Various behind the scenes segments follow, all of which are the same as the ones included on New Line's US DVD. There are four featurettes of various length, with the longest being the 30-minute El Fauno y las Hadas (Pan and the Fairies), which looks at the various prosthetic and computer-generated effects in the film, while the shortest, the 4-minute The Colour and the Shape, contains a discussion of the visual differences between the real and fairytale worlds. The best featurette, in my opinion, is the 14-minute The Power of Myth, in which Del Toro discusses the various fairytale archetypes that made their way into the film. Finally, The Melody Echoes the Fairytale contains a brief discussion of the main theme music found in the film, while Mercedes' Lullaby provides a 2-minute progression demonstration, taking the piece from composer Javier Navarrete's original demo tape all the way to the version heard in the final film.

The Director's Notebook, meanwhile, contains a handful of short featurettes covering various aspects of the production - set design, make-up, use of imagery, and so on. This is a far more accessible presentation of these materials than the US version, which contained a reproduction of the notebook of conceptual ideas that Del Toro put together for the film, and required the user to go through the pages and select certain images, but it does unfortunately mean that Del Toro's video introduction, which explains how to browse through the notebook, makes little sense in context.

Also included is a storyboard to final film comparison, and several DVD Comic Sketches, which are not the semi-animated pieces included on the US DVD but rather a collection of still images, presented in the form of a video gallery. A Poster Gallery and the original Trailer complete the package. Regrettably, the 50-minute episode of The Charlie Rose Show, which featured Del Toro, Alfonso Cuarón and Alejandro González Iñárritu and was included on the US disc, and was by far the best documentary piece in that release, is absent here. You could argue that the Mark Kermode interview covers much of the same ground and allows Del Toro more time to himself, rather than having to share the microphone with two of his compatriots, but personally I preferred the Charlie Rose interview.

Overall

Optimum's HD DVD release of Pan's Labyrinth is a good one, and one which improves substantially on all current DVD releases in terms of image quality. It does have its shortcomings, however, particularly with regard to the problem of audio synchronisation, and looks set to be superseded by New Line's substantially meatier US release, due out towards the end of the year. If you want your HD fairytale fix now, however, you could do a lot worse than picking up this release.

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