Pans Labyrinth 🎥 2006 Movie Info

Plot Summary

In a fairy tale, Princess Moanna, whose father is the king of the underworld, visits the human world, where the sunlight blinds her and erases her memory. She becomes mortal and eventually dies. The king believes that eventually her spirit will return to the underworld, so he builds labyrinths around the world which act as portals, in preparation for her return. In 1944 Francoist Spain, ten-year-old Ofelia travels with her pregnant mother Carmen to meet Captain Vidal, her new stepfather. Vidal, a Civil Guard officer of the Armed Police Corps and devotee of Falangism, has been assigned to hunt down the Spanish Maquis.

A large stick insect, which Ofelia believes to be a fairy, leads Ofelia into an ancient stone labyrinth, but she is stopped by Vidal’s housekeeper Mercedes, who is secretly supporting her brother Pedro and other members of the Maquis. That night, the insect appears in Ofelia’s bedroom, where it transforms into a fairy and leads her through the labyrinth. There, she meets a faun, who believes she is the reincarnation of Princess Moanna. He gives her a book and tells her she will find in it three tasks to complete in order for her to acquire immortality and return to her kingdom. During a dinner with several important figures, Vidal announces that he will stockpile food and supplies in the granary in order to weaken the Maquis and their collaborators.

The local population can only access supplies through ration cards. Vidal secures the granary with a thick padlock, to which Mercedes pretends to give him a unique copy of the key. Ofelia completes the first task — retrieving a key from the belly of a giant toad — but becomes worried about her mother, whose condition is worsening. The faun gives Ofelia a mandrake root, instructing her to keep it under Carmen’s bed and regularly supply it with blood, which seems to ease Carmen’s illness.

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