Fairytale is a subject quite often seen in visual culture, especially in films. Lately we have seen many retellings of fairytales, such as Mirror Mirror (2013), Snow White and the Huntsman (2013), Maleficent (2014) and Cinderella (2015) to name just a few.
Yet there are a few films that deal with fairytale in a way that intrigues me, as they don’t use as many of the tropes and clichés, or at least they don’t play with them in the same way.
In Pan’s Labyrinth, a young girl called Ofelia has moved to a new place with her pregnant mother to be with her new husband. Ofelia’s interactions with the fey could be seen as her imagination helping her escape the situation that she is in. This could be confirmed or denied later in the film where Ofelia talks to Pan, the satyr-like being, yet her step-father watches her, but sees only her. This could be seen that the fairytale is nothing but delusion, though could also be explained if the fey have laws on who can and cannot see them; often in fairytales only those who are pure can.
Yet the fairytale is not always shown to be light, pretty and magical. In fact, sometimes it is exactly the opposite, the Pale One, for example, wishes nothing more than to devour children. This is often not something that you would show to children
Jade Jenkins 