By Felipe D and Vivien P

Pan's labyrinth begins with Ofelia and her pregnant mother driving to their new mountainous home. Ofelia feels lonely and hateful towards her new military stepfather. She finds solace in fairy tales and finds herself caught up in an adult fairy tale. Unbeknown to her, her tyrannical step-father fights rebels against Franco's dictatorship. Ofelia struggles with the juxtaposition of innocent fairy tales and the hard reality in this riveting Spanish fantasy.

Ofelia suffers because she sees real-life fantasy right before her eyes and no one believes her. I feel as humanity in general deserves the openness to receive everyone's, including children's, opinions. As a kid, and to be honest, to this day, I hated being told I'm wrong, more so if I strongly believe in what was in question. Ofelia deserved a open ear, and also definitely didn't deserve to be constantly repressed. If we as a people oppress imagination, we have no room in which we can grow because we lose our way without believing in something better.

Although it is not the main idea of the movie, an underlying theme in Pan's Labyrinth is how unfairly women were treated then, and sometimes even to this day. In the film, I observed how harshly the Captain acted towards Mercedes (the servant of the house), Ofelia, and even Carmen, (Ofelia's mother) who the Captain is now married to, just because they are women. He sees that he is the head of everyone, and believes that men are better than women, and has no problem showing it. He even goes as far as saying that the expected child will be a male, even though they had no way of knowing whether it would be a male or female.

Franco and the military were associated in a coup d'état against the Popular Front government; when the coup failed, it escalated into the Spanish Civil War, during which Franco became the head of the Nationalists against the Popular Front government. With military help from Italy and Nazi Germany, Franco got rid of the Spanish Parliament and set up a totalitarian regime.

"Francisco Franco." Wikipedia. Accessed May 19, "General Franco." Spanish Talk. Accessed May 19,