Essay on Myth in World Film
I am comparing Guillermo del Toro's Pan's Labyrinth and Walt Disney's Cinderella. The stories have very similar beginnings, including new starts for two young women. In Pan's Labyrinth Ofelia and her pregnant mother have just arrived to their new home, living with Ofelia's stepfather. He is anything but nice to her and sees her more as a burden, only interested in his son that is to be born from her mother. Her mother falls ill due to complications with her pregnancy and passes away during childbirth. In Cinderella the movie starts off with Cinderella losing her father, and she is now left to live with her evil stepmother and two step sisters. She is forced to become their maid and is often abused. So both stories involve young women left to live with evil step parents.

In Pan's Labyrinth, little does she know, Ofelia is introduced to the magical underground by a fairy that comes to her on her first day at the mill. The first night the fairy guides her to the labyrinth where she meets the faun.She learns that she is Princess Moanna, daughter of the King of the underworld. She is visiting the human world when the sunlight erases her memory, forgetting who she really is, becoming a mortal. Her father is awaiting her return to the underworld, and the faun describes to her the tasks she must do before the full moon to regain her immortality and return to her kingdom. In Cinderella, there is a ball that is being held at the royal kingdom, and it is ordered that all of the young women in the land attend so that the Prince can find his wife. The evil stepmother and stepsisters are going of course, and the evil step mother tells Cinderella that she too can attend the ball if she gets all of the chores assigned to her finished with in time and finds a suitable dress to wear. The animals that Cinderella has befriended help her by fixing up an old dress and finding jewelry for her; the step mother is angered because some of the things are stolen from her daughters' wardrobe and she destroys the new dress Cinderella was going to wear. As Cinderella is crying in the garden, unable to attend the ball now because she has nothing to wear, her fairy godmother appears to her and transforms her into a beautiful princess with a new gown, slippers, and a chariot to attend the ball in. The fairy godmother warns her that this spell will wear off at midnight, so she must be home by then.

 

Both of these stories have a deadline of when either the tasks must be done by or when a spell will wear off; leaving the lady to either a life as a mortal, or returning to life as a slave. Both of the young girls in the stories are approached by a fairy who informs them of their royal status and helps them achieve a goal of obtaining it. The faun and fairy in Pan's Labyrinth help Ofelia perform 3 tasks; retrieving a key from the belly of a giant toad, retrieving a dagger from the lair of the Pale Man, and the third one of sacrificing her baby brother's blood. She refuses to do the third task of harming her baby brother. In the movie, around the same time her mother passes away, Captain Vidal learns that Mercedes (the housekeeper) is an informant for the rebels and locks Ofelia in her room because she knew about it. Cinderella gets locked in her room as well in that story. When the clock strikes midnight, Cinderella lost track of time and must rush home before Prince Charming can see who she really is. In the process she loses one of her glass slippers, which he picks up. The next day he travels all through the land to find the owner of the glass slipper because he knows this is who he wants to marry. The evil step mother locks Cinderella in her room once she finds out that she is the owner of the glass slipper because she doesn't want her to marry the prince.

Both stories have a happy ending, in Cinderella she is freed from captivity in her bedroom just in time to try the slipper on while the duke is at her home. He discovers that she is the perfect match and takes her back to the kingdom to be reunited with the prince. They are then married and live happily ever after. Although Ofelia dies as a human, she is returned to her kingdom of the underworld and is reunited with her mother and  father. The faun informs her that she completed the third task, which actually was not to provide her baby brother's blood, but to sacrifice herself in his place so that no harm would be done to him. So both princesses get their kingdom in the end after living lives filled with darkness. 

In Pan's Labyrinth, throughout the entire movie the visual style is very dark, and although it is about a fairy tale it is very gothic compared to what we usually think of when we think of fairy tales. Guillermo del Toro explained in an interview how fascinated he is by fairy tales, and that he wanted to add his own little twist to one. He did this by using some of the same elements that are commonly found throughout fairy tales; young girl in distress, rule of 3's, tasks that need to be completed, and fairies/fairy godmothers. He incorporates all of these in this film, and so does the story of Cinderella. Although Walt Disney's Cinderella has many pretty colors to it and is a bit more vibrant, there is a lot of darkness throughout the film as well. Other versions of Cinderella have more darkness to them, but I believe that because this version was created as a cartoon for children Walt Disney obviously made it more appealing to children's eyes. Also in both films the main character is a young lady who eventually discovers her life as a princess after overcoming certain obstacles. Guillermo del Toro explained in the same interview that because he has always been fascinated with fairy tales, that he chose to tell this story that way. I think that he made it more dark and twisty because he wanted to do something totally different, not something you would expect from the usual whimsical fairy tale. His decision to tell the story through a fairy tale myth I think made it easier for viewers to follow along with, and it keeps it simple for us. He was trying to combine the real world with the fantasy world, including real life issue such as war..which he accomplished well in this film. In an interview he comments that beauty can come from dark places, you may experience pain on the way, but you have to go after it. I think this was his biggest message that he was trying to portray when making this film. I believe that this theory also applies to Cinderella, she lived a life of poverty and was basically a slave but still believed in happy endings which is exactly what she got.