# data[].attributes.body
“…my name is so old it can only be pronounced by the wind and the trees.” The existence of immortality is normalized by the faun. Having him speak so casually to Ofelia about how old his name was brings the idea of immortality into the world. Afterward he tells her that she is the lost princess of the subterranean kingdom. Later on, the Faun tells Ofelia she failed her quest to retrieve the dagger from the Pale Man's dining room after she eats two grapes despite being instructed not to do so. Then she was told, "...you will live among the humans and die among them, your memory of us will fade." Immortality is spoken with these measures of physical references and yet is something beyond human understanding. In this way, our senses of time are both undone and recreated to reflect the logic of this new realm in the film's world (Faris 173).

(Luis Garcia)

# data[].attributes.body
For one of Ofelia’s quests she was able to draw a door into a wall and create an entrance toward the chambers of the Pale Man. She was told that she would have to go through and come back before the sand in the hourglass runs out. Throughout the whole story, it is ambiguous whether the underworld or anything associated with it is real or not. However the conflict of being eaten by the Pale Man and stealing food from him parallels with the food struggle going on above ground. Despite the ambiguity some things are better explained by the existence of the parallel world (IE getting into the captain's quarters without the magical chalk should have been impossible for Ofelia.)
This corresponds to Faris' third characteristic of magical realism: the reader's hesitation of contradictory real and fantastical elements. These contradictions of the film that appear to both confirm or deny the magic within this world is what gives it a sense of magical realism (Faris 171).

(Luis Garcia)

# data[].attributes.body
In magical realism there is this “irreducible” magic that cannot be explained by typical notions of natural law (Faris 167). We are presented to this fantastical infiltrating into the real world of the story when the faun gives Ofelia a mandrake root to put under her sick mothers bed. After Ofelia obeys him, Carmen, her mom, starts getting progressively healthier. However when Ofelia does not follow the faun's rules, the mandrake roots starts to appear almost dead. Before she can do anything about it, Captain Vidal pulls her from under the bed and tells Carmen to handle the situation. Carmen, tells Ofelia that magic does not exist, that the real world is nothing like the fairytales Ofelia reads, and that she will learn this as time passes and life hurts. After Ofelia's failed attempt to explain to her mom that the root is keeping her alive, Carmen throws the mandrake root into the fire. This makes Carmen and the burning mandrake root cry out of pain, making her die hours later while giving birth.

(Karla Garcia)

# data[].attributes.body
The fairies in the film are transformed stickbugs that appear to have intelligence and sentience. The stickbug uses the illustration of the fairy in Ofelia's storybook as a basis in her reality of what a fairy should look like and thusly morphs to fit that description. The reality of the stickbug and the fantasy of the fairy fuse together to fit comfortably together with the world of the Faun and the world of Ophelia. This beckons to Faris's 4th characteristic of magical realism in that it demonstrates a merging of two realms or worlds (172). The boundary between the real and magical become blurred as the storybook acts as the jumping-off point that connects the two worlds.

(Lucas C Vieira)

# data[].attributes.body
The film's antagonists are intertwined across the dimensions of the fantastical and the real--such as with General Vidal and the Pale Man. It pushes a heavy tone of antifascism against the brutal Francoist military, but is connected to the primal evils of the fantasy creatures Ofelia encounters like the Pale Man and the gluttony of the Giant Toad. Magic in magical realism is commonly used to overturn the "established social order," as Ofelia does with her magical tools to deter the military and keep her mother alive (Faris 179). In the film we are initially led to believe the the magical realm Ofelia encounters will be an escape from the horrors of reality when, in actuality, it reflects the same horrors into disturbing, otherworldly creatures (Faris 181).

(Lucas C Vieira)

# data[].attributes.body
The film's events proceed with a traditional narrative structure reminiscent of classic fairytales one would hear as a child: Red Riding Hood, the Three Little Pigs, etc. Ofelia must complete three trials in order to return to the underworld while also contending with her own problems in the real world. Each creature is representative of fantasy villains, like the Pale Man as the Ogre or Troll, and even the trials Ofelia must complete are described in a large storybook provided by the Faun. The archetypes presented throughout the film go back to centuries of folktales that have been passed down from generations. According to Faris, much of magical realism can be grounded on "ancient systems of belief" and embedded with "local lore" (182). In Pan's Labyrinth, Del Toro is clearly embedding European childhood fairytales as the basis for a universal understanding of the classic bildungsroman narrative structure.

(Lucas C Vieira)