Anatomy of a Scene: The Pale Man wakes in ‘Pan’s Labyrinth’
On May 27th, 2006, Guillermo del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth was met with a 22-minute-long standing ovation, the longest in the festival’s history. Winning three Academy Awards, among many other accolades, it is considered del Toro’s magnum opus and one of the best fantasy films ever made. Set during the reign of Franco, the film blends wartime drama with dark fantasy to create a parable that explores the way in which war can affect the mind and how our choices define us.
Pan’s Labyrinth tells the story of 11-year-old Ofelia and her pregnant mother, who have been sent to live with her new stepfather, a merciless general in Franco’s army who hunts Spanish guerillas in the countryside. Feeling trapped by her brutal reality, Ofelia escapes into the dark fantasy world of an enchanted labyrinth, where she must undertake a mythical journey guided by a benevolent and sinister faun.
Boasting Guillermo del Toro’s signature gothic fantasy style, the movie is a feat of creative genius and dedication to special effects. Using minimal CGI, the film’s eerie creatures and intricate sets were brought to life through make-up and animatronics. The iconic ‘Pale Man Wakes’ scene is the definitive scene that gives a real sense of what del Toro is capable of and is surely seared indelibly in the minds of those whose parents thought the film a childhood caper.
Believing Ofelia is the reincarnation of the Princess of the Underworld, the faun gives her three tasks to complete to restore her to her throne. After unsuccessfully attempting to fetch a key from the belly of a giant toad, Ofelia is given a piece of magic chalk, a book of instructions and three fairies to guide her through her next task. From the dark depths of her midnight-shrouded bedroom, Ofelia follows the instructions in the book, using the magic chalk to open a doorway from the real, fascist realm of her own to the fantastically dark and uncanny world of the labyrinth. When she tentatively opens the stone doorway, it’s easy to see the ethereal way in which del Toro has created a world so juxtaposed yet similar to our own.
The dark recesses of Ofelia’s bedroom are heavily contrasted by the vibrant reds of the Alice in Wonderland-esque underworld. The glistening quality of the walls and the bone-coloured pillars create the sense of being inside some monstrous creature – which Ofelia soon might be given her lack of urgency and fear. Guided by the fairies, she makes her way into another room and is confronted by a veritable feast of every child’s dream, with cakes and jellies and a mountain of fruit, which we know she’s been warned against eating, but know that she inevitably will.
At the head of the feast is a creature that truly speaks to del Toro’s unique vision and his crew’s patience. Juxtaposing the decadence of the feast is the Pale Man, an uncanny, almost featureless humanoid creature with eyes sitting on a plate before him. Sergio Sandoval’s creation is undoubtedly the driving force of the terror created in this scene, along with the creepy movement of actor Doug Jones and the slow disobedience of the hungry Ofelia.
Inspired by del Toro’s own weight loss and the pale terror of Francisco Goya’s 1923 painting Saturn Devouring His Son, the Pale Man was designed by Sandoval and executed by David Marti and Xavi Bastida. Its lack of eyes and nose denotes its voracious hunger for children, not the beautiful banquet before him. Speaking to LitHub, David Marti explains his and del Toro’s process, which saw the director somehow still not quite horrified enough by the end result. The director wished for his Pal Man to transform into a four-legged, screaming horse creature.
But it is the slow, awkward movement of Doug Jones’ Pale Man that is so terror-inducing. Watching Ofelia successfully find the dagger she was sent in search of, only for her to defy the faun’s instructions and eat from the feast, surely has had audiences screaming at the screen. The pure horror of the Pale Man slowly waking from his slumber behind Ofelia as she painstakingly enjoys a grape is truly the stuff of nightmares.
Brought to life through a combination of full-body make-up and marionette legs placed above the actor’s, the creature succeeds in biting the heads of two fairies – a la Goya – and eerily chasing Ofelia through the intestine-like corridor. The jerking movements of Jones and the guttural noises created by del Toro himself only add to the tension. As Ofelia clumsily re-draws the door and escapes, her broken chalk leaves the impression that this cannibalistic, humanoid creature is simply a doodle away from our own world.
