Artfully designed and containing substance beyond its aesthetics, the filmography of Guillermo del Toro is laden with deep meaning. Whether his films are more reflexive or understated in the grandness of their proverbial meaning, del Toro’s still-in-progress trilogy encompassing the forgotten Spanish Civil War delves into the director’s acceptance of and grappling of trauma.
In a video essay by Storytellers, two of del Toro’s films that follow a linear telling of the aforementioned war confabulate the fantastical and supernatural with the innocence of trauma of children. The first in the trilogy, “The Devil’s Backbone,” follows 12-year-old Carlos as he discovers the dark, gothic, supernatural inhabiting the orphanage he is left to. Del Toro’s second film of the trilogy is the lauded and beloved “Pan’s Labyrinth” arguably del Toro’s more famous of the two films. Much like ‘Backbone,’ “Pan’s Labyrinth” follows Ophelia as she begins to understand the reality around her is not as it seems, finding that she is a part of a world she is not meant to be in and her journey to return to the magical underworld, of which she reigns as princess.
The video essay by Storytellers artfully and academically highlights the parallels between the two films, and how both can be attributed to the different facets of confronting trauma against the backdrop of the Spanish Civil War. In both films, del Toro balances his gothic, fantastical style with a historic reliance. As Carlos engages with the specter of the orphanage to find answers, confronting emotional scars, Ophelia takes a journey following the traumatic death of her father to become a part of her true reality; the fantasy world which has been forgotten.
Guillermo del Toro’s haunting and stunning imagery is rarely, if ever, brought about without some form of meaning or understanding for the diegetic world his creations are a part of. The footnote that has become The Spanish Civil War is experienced and handled through the eyes of children; making ultimate sacrifices and confronting that which children presumably never should; darkness and death. Del Toro’s final film in this trilogy is still in the works, but his understanding of trauma and exhilarating tales will guide audiences through darkness pushing us out into the light.
