PANS CONTEXT

• It explores themes such as fascism, political oppression, and the role of women in society.
• Director Del Toro = an auteur, he had a high degree of creative control on the film.
• Set after the Spanish Civil War (1936 - 1939), which was won by fascist dictator Franco.
• Franco placed a militaristic regime on Spain, he persecuted anyone who supported the left wing republicans or anyone who resisted his new regime.
• Franco was supported by the upper class and the catholic church, which is reflected in Vidals banquet attended by the priest and eltie members of society. This sequence represents the corruption of Franco's regime.
• There is a clear moral dichotomy between Falangists (Vidal et el) and the rebels (mercedes, the doctor)
• Falangist supported rigid gender roles and removed women's rights as human beings.

  
  

  Falangist emphasizes the need for total authority, hierarchy, and order in society.

  
  

  Like fascism, it is anti-communist, anti-democratic, and anti-liberal. It supported many beliefs of the Roman Catholic Church.
• The Guerillas = comradely and honest freedom fights - Del Toro clearly wants us to sympathise with them and celebrate their victory.
• Vidal = sadistic, cruel, condemning anything remotely feminine of imaginative - takes pervase pleasure in toruring the rebels he captures.

  Priest = corrupt, giving religious sanction to Vidals behaviour ('god has already saved their souls, what happens with their bodies hardly matters to him.')
• In the fairy world, the toads gluttony and pale mans feast represent corruption of franco regime.
• In previous works, Del Toro had explicitly criticised the catholic church. He states that the Pale Man is a reflection of the accusations of Franco child abuse: sat before a sumptious feast yet the murals behind him suggest he would rather prey on children.
• Premiered at Canne May 2006 and recieved twenty two minute standing ovation.
• The spanish films about the war differ from those made out of the country, they are often more relective and examine the war from the POV of personal trauma and national disaster.
• Women = reduced under francos rule. Second class citexens. Echoed in Vidal.
• Carl Jung = swiss psychiatrist. 


  He explored the meaning of 'the shadow', claiming 'the shadow is a moral problem that challenges the whole ego-personality, for no one can become conscous of the shadow without moral effort.'

  'dark aspects of the personality.'
• The shadow = dark side of personality. Myths, monsters and movie villains are reflections of this shado in archetypal human form.

  The shadow becomes its most destructive, insidious and dangerous when habitually repressed and projected.
• Del Toro prefered to use prosthetics rather than CGI. Yet the toad was too big to move so had to be mainly CGI.
• Del Toro rarely pulls the camera away from violence, forcing us to confront Vidals homicidal wrath.