FAQ

Guillermo del Toro himself wrote the story.

Yes, the film is available in English. Though it didn't get a full-fledged release on any VOD platforms, one can buy the BluRay disc of the film from any e-commerce website (conveniently from Amazon Store).

"El Laberinto del Fauno" literally translated means "The Labyrinth of the Faun". Since in English faun (a satyr) and fawn (a baby deer) are both pronounced the same, it was believed that there would be some confusion so the English title is "Pan's Labyrinth" (instead of "The Faun's Labyrinth) even though the Faun is not the god Pan. "The Satyr's Labyrinth" might have sufficed as a title, but there are other English words that sound like it too, not to mention that "satyr" is an obscure word with which many people might not be familiar. The satyr also differs from the faun in lots of ancient depictions, in that it may have human legs instead of goat legs. The fact the Faun is not Pan is made clear by director, Guillermo del Toro in the special features, as he says he did not want the sexual god Pan to be a character opposite a young girl.

No, it is not his voice. His voice was dubbed in post-production by Pablo Adan. Despite that, Doug Jones learned his lines and those of Ivana Baquero in Spanish.

Guillermo del Toro stated: I've done four films with Doug Jones. Every actor has a particular gift, you know? One of the gifts that is most mysterious and elusive is the gift of working under makeup. Some great ones, like Laurence Olivier, excelled at it. He used to very graciously say to his makeup guys, "You're doing half the work for me." Lon Chaney, Ron Perlman [who played the title character in Hellboy] are so good at it. There are some actors who are very, very good and nevertheless are terrible under makeup, making the makeup look stiff. But Doug isn't just an actor who's really good with makeup; he's a guy who specializes in creating a whole ecosystem around the creature. He moves, walks, breathes the way this creature would. That's acting, that's not mimicry or pantomime. He's really, no pun intended, under the skin of the character. The biggest quality an actor can have is to be there in the moment. To do that for a fantasy creature is truly a gift.

Doug had to look through the nostrils of the mask to see where he was going. However, he had to look through the left nostril with his right eye and the right nostril with his left, making it impossible for him to watch where he was going with both eyes at the same time.

No, he came from Guillermo del Toro's own imagination. However, the character was heavily influenced by Goya's painting 'Saturn Devouring his Son'. You can see the painting here. Certain characteristics of the Pale Man may also have been partly inspired by German and Scandinavian folk tales, in which persons or monsters representing the dead (or being dead themselves) are usually portrayed as blind or at least very near-sighted, and often also as child-eaters.

Ofelia claims that she ate the two grapes because she didn't think they would be missed. One can draw certain parallels to the Greek myth of Persephone and the Biblical account of the Garden of Eden. However, she appeared to be in a sort of trance with the forbidden fruit acting as a sort of a Siren's Song. Something that may also have been of influence is that Ofelia was sent to bed without dinner the evening before as a punishment for ruining her dress and missing the dinner party. The hunger would have made her more susceptible to the "Siren Song" of the fruits displayed at the banquet. Moreover, given the level of rationing at the time, it may be possible that grapes were a luxury that Ofelia now misses. Also, the fairies were trying to convince her to open the wrong door with the key. Therefore, she no longer trusted them and didn't believe that anything bad would happen if she ate any of the food. So she brushed the fairies away and ate the grapes. Furthermore, it could be said that Ofelia and her mother, while both in "discomfort", were both eating from the "same table". One could say that Ofelia's mother was not happy with her relationship with the Captain. Nevertheless, although it harmed her soul, she was still attracted by all the pleasures that came along. Ofelia's eating the fruit can be seen as a metaphor for her mother eating at the "same table" with someone that, at first, looked harmless; but, on further insight, turned out to be a monster.

In addition to all of the above, consider that the underlying theme of a great portion of the movie concerns obedience: Capitan Vidal is blindly obedient; the doctor specifically accuses him of such after refusing the captain's orders to save the tortured man. By contrast, the heroes of this film are the disobedient ones, and so it is only fitting, albeit quite confusing at first, that Ofelia should eat the grapes, even when clearly told not to. Aside from the fact that her doing so also creates quite a juicy (pun intended) moment of tension for the viewer, who is inwardly shouting, "Don't eat the grapes!" (a tension that del Toro sets up very obviously by having Ofelia's back to the monster), it is also by having it so completely and perfectly obvious that she absolutely must be obedient that helps to very brilliantly underline this moment of pure disobedience on her part.

Also, it is important to remember the third task, in which not following the rules was the best answer: Ofelia passes the test by sparing her infant brother, at the cost of her own mortal life, though she had promised to obey the faun.

According to his interview with twitchfilm.net, Guillermo Del Toro said that the fantasy world isn't only Ofelia's imagination; the fantasy world does exist. In the ending, Ofelia does actually live in the world (where she would be more happy to live in than the real world). A more subtle clue lies in the movie itself: After discovering that Ofelia knew the truth about Mercedes, Vidal has Ofelia locked in her room, and the guard stationed outside has orders to kill Ofelia first if anyone tries to come to her rescue. So if she didn't use the faun's magical chalk to create a door in the wall, how did Ofelia successfully leave her room and escape the notice of the guard? Her room had no windows for her to use, either.

As the Pan's Labyrinth § Influences article on Wikipedia explains, Guillermo del Toro has said the film has strong connections in theme to The Devil's Backbone and should be seen as an informal sequel or spiritual successor dealing with some of the issues raised there. In 2004, Del Toro said:

Pan is an original story. Some of my favorite writers [Borges, Blackwood, Machen, Dunsany] have explored the figure of the god Pan and the symbol of the labyrinth. These are things that I find very compelling [remember the labyrinth image on Hellboy?] and I am trying to mix them and play with them.

The article further explains that some of the works he drew on for inspiration include Jorge Luis Borges' Labyrinths, Arthur Machen's The Great God Pan and The White People, Lord Dunsany's The Blessing of Pan, Algernon Blackwood's Pan's Garden and Francisco Goya's Saturn Devouring His Son. It can be seen as a cinematic example of the Latin American literary genre of magic realism. Having been asked to direct The Chronicles of Narnia films but having declined (on account of not imagining himself rendering a scene whereby Aslan the lion is brought back to life), Del Toro explained to the Australian press, "This is my version of that universe, not only Narnia, but that universe of children's literature" (quoted here).

In this case, it depends on if whether the runtime of the credits is added to the total runtime, or whether, as far as optical discs are concerned, the format is NTSC or PAL. In general, PAL discs are always 4% faster than the NTSC equivalent, but it's hardly noticeable. There is only one version of Pan's Labyrinth.