Hosted by Andrew Quinn and Darren Mooney, with special guest Jack Packard, The 250 is a (mostly) weekly trip through some of the best (and worst) movies ever made, as voted for by Internet Movie Database Users. New episodes are released every Saturday at 6pm GMT.
This time, Guillermo Del Toro’s El laberinto del fauno.
In the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War, a young girl named Ofelia moves to her new stepfather’s house. As Captain Vidal ruthlessly hunts down the remaining rebels, Ofelia discovers that there is something enchanted lurking in the nearby woods. A mysterious faun promises to secret Ofelia away to a magical realm, if she can complete three tasks. As Ofelia finds herself caught between fantasy and reality, she discovers the sometimes the worst monsters are the human kind.
At time of recording, it was ranked 146th on the list of the best movies of all time on the Internet Movie Database.
Show Notes:
- Recorded 9th September 2021.
- Note: Due to the COVID-19 situation, this episode was recorded remotely. We suspect, going forward that a lot of our episodes will be until the crisis resolves.
- Pan’s Labyrinth at the Internet Movie Database.
- The Top 250 at time of recording.
- Follow Jack on Twitter.
- Watch Jack in Adventure is Nigh.
- Watch Darren and Jack at The Escapist Movie Podcast.
- Cassie Parkes at Cultured Vultures debates the issue of consent in The Shape of Water, January 2018.
- Kat Knibbs at The Ringer discusses the Oscar-winning fish sex in The Shape of Water, January 2018.
- Adam B. Vary at Entertainment Weekly reports on Guillermo Del Toro’s departure from the Hobbit movies, May 2010.
- Phillipa Boyens talks to The Hollywood Reporter about what Guillermo Del Toro’s version of The Hobbit would have looked like, December 2012.
- Guillermo Del Toro talks to IndieWire about his aborted adaptation of At the Mountains of Madness, April 2017.
- Guillermo Del Toro talks to MovieWeb about how he still hopes to make At the Mountains of Madness, July 2020.
- Guillermo Del Toro talks to IndieWire about what he learned from working with Harvey Weinstein on Mimic, October 2017.
- Guillermo Del Toro talks to The Seattle Times about his decision to keep Hollywood out of Pan’s Labyrinth, January 2007.
- Guillermo Del Toro talks to Mark Kermode for Sight & Sound about the production of Pan’s Labyrinth, December 2006.
- Ed Yong at National Geographic discusses how the process of remembering rewrites the memories in question, May 2013.
- Daniel Zalewski profiles Guillermo Del Toro for The New Yorker, January 2011.
- Guillermo Del Toro discusses his life and career with The New York Times, November 2006.
- Victor Pinto at CinEuropa reports on the record-breaking success of Pan’s Labyrinth at the American box office, February 2007.
- NPR reports on the Oscar nominations, January 2007.
- John Hecht at The Hollywood Reporter discusses the Oscar chances of Pan’s Labyrinth, September 2006.
- David Denby at The New Yorker looks on Babel as an unconventional Best Picture nominee, March 2007.
- Caryn James at The New York Times considers the crop of Best Foreign Film contenders, February 2007.
- Zack Sharf at IndieWire reflects on the Oscar glory of “the three amigos”, March 2018.
- Guillermo Del Toro talks to Criterion about The Devil’s Backbone, July 2013.
- Guillermo Del Toro talks to The Guardian about the symbolism and logic that guides and shapes Pan’s Labyrinth, November 2006.
- Nat Brehmer at Wicked Horror reflects on why the Spanish Civil War holds such an appeal for Guillermo Del Toro, July 2015.
- Adam Hochschild at The New York Times looks back on “the white terror” in Spain, May 2012.
- Giles Tremlett at The Guardian reflects on the legacy and horror of “the red terror” in Spain, September 2008.
- The Spanish Labyrinth by Gerald Brenan, 1943.
- Alex W. Palmer at The Smithsonian Magazine looks at the battle over the memory and legacy of the Spanish Civil War, July 2018.
- Michael Atkinson at Criterion discusses the symbolism and metaphors at play in Pan’s Labyrinth, October 2016.
- Hitchock by Guillermo Del Toro, 2009.
- Brian Cathcart at The Independent reports on the myth that fascist make the trains run on time, October 2011.
- The Economist reports on the difficult of making trains run on time, November 2018.
- Kira Cochrane at The Guardian discusses the feminism in the fantasy genre, including Pan’s Labyrinth, April 2007.
- Stephen Holden at The New York Times looks at how that year’s awards season was dominated by women, October 2006.
- Paul Justin Smith at Film Quarterly puts Pan’s Labyrinth in its particular cultural and historical perspective, Summer 2007.
- Geoffrey Billet writes at International Brigades about the legacy of Belchite, October 2015.
- Doug Jones and Ivana Baquero talk to IndieWire about their work on Pan’ Labyrinth, October 2017.
- Doug Jones talks to Comic Book Resources about taking over the voice of Abe Sapien in Hellboy II: The Golden Army, July 2008.
- Doug Jones talks to BuzzFeed about his life and career, November 2017.
- Follow The 250 on Twitter.
- Subscribe to The 250 on iTunes.
- Subscribe to The 250 on Stitcher.
- Listen to The 250 on Soundcloud.
- Listen to The 250 on Spotify.
- Browse listening options at pod.link.
Filed under: The 250 | Tagged: childhood, coming of age, Fairy tale, fantasy, feminism, guillermo del toro, horror, jack packard, metaphors, monsters, pans labyrinth, podcast, Spanish Civil War, The 250, the shape of water, violence |
the m0vie blog 
How do you interpret the ending? Was the fantasy real? Or was it all just a coping mechanism for Ofeila to escape the horrors of reality? I lean towards the latter, personally.
I think maybe both. I think within the world of the story, we should probably accept it as real. But I do think the larger point the story is making is that we construct these sorts of fantasies to make sense of horrible real-life situations like this, especially (but not exclusively) for children. But that’s just my two cents.