Pan's Labyrinth

Written and directed by Guillermo Del Torro the film is set in fascist Spain in 1944. A young girl named Ofelia who is obsessed with fairy tales is relocated to a rural mill when her pregnant mother Carmen marries a wealthy military man called Captain Vidal. Unhappy with her cruel surrounding Ofelia is lead to the labyrinth by a fairy where she meets an old faun. The faun tells her she is a princess and has to complete 3 tasks if she wants return to her kingdom. Whilst Ofelia is running off to her fantasy world the captain is fighting off the rebels and her mother is having problems with the last stage of her pregnancy. Throughout the film there are many acts of shocking violence, which raises the question is the violence necessary?

Captain Vidal is brutal and ruthless; he is extremely violent even when it is totally unnecessary. An example of his violence is when a group of his soldiers find two peasants in the forest who claim to be hunting for rabbits for their family. The soldiers take the peasants to Captain Vidal and he goes through their bags and finds rebel propaganda and a glass bottle. They try to explain to him why they were out in the forest, the captain then smashes the bottle on one of the peasants faces and then repeatedly hits his face with it until he dies. He shoots the other peasant when he shouts at him for killing his son. The Captain goes through the bag further and pulls out dead rabbits. He shows no remorse for what he has done to the men but simply shouts at the soldiers for wasting his time and for not thoroughly searching the bag.

The Captain has many servants who help around the mill, one of them is a woman called Mercedes who at first appears to be just servant. Later in the film we discover that her brother is the leader of the rebels in the forest and that she has been helping them by spying on the captain and giving them supplies because she has a key to the storeroom. She goes unnoticed by the captain but he becomes suspicious of her when the rebels break into the storeroom, but realises that the lock wasn't forced open. Throughout the film Mercedes always tucks a knife under her apron; this leaves the viewer curious and unsure of the purpose of it. Eventually Mercedes is found out by Captain Vidal and he takes her to the storeroom and ties her up to torture her. A soldier is dismissed by the Captain, but he asks if the Captain wants him to stay. The captain says she is just a woman and he will manage perfectly fine. The Captain explains to Mercedes what is going to happen and turns round to get his tools for torturing her, but before he has time to turn back around Mercedes has cut herself free from the ropes with her knife that was tucked under her apron and drags the knife down the Captain's back. He is in disbelief that he has been attacked by a woman and she puts the knife in his mouth and slashes along his cheek. I think that the violence Mercedes inflicted on the Captain was necessary