The first snag is that the fantasy in the film isn’t very fantastical. While creatures like the faun who sets Ofelia on a variety of tasks and a monster (the Pale Man) reminiscent of something out of Silent Hill are beautifully conceived, along with their environments, the fantasy world of “Pan’s Labyrinth” plays a small role in comparison to the “real” world. It’s like being in the room of a fabulous museum without ever seeing other rooms, and not knowing if there even is a museum. When compared to film’s like “Labyrinth” or last year’s “Mirrormask,” among others, the fantasy world of “Pan’s Labyrinth” is quite tiny. It’s not even worth calling it a “world” as opposed to isolated locales.

“Mirrormask” actually provides a good comparison, as its story is structurally similar to that of “Pan’s Labyrinth”: a girl, faced with an unpleasant reality, heads into a fantasy world. The question is: Is the fantasy world real within the movie? Or is it just a figment of the girl’s imagination? “Mirrormask” handles the question very cleverly by achieving the kind of ambiguity in which it is possible to answer the question either way and still be satisfied. “Pan’s Labyrinth,” however, isn’t so successful. There are certain scenes that definitely push one answer over another, despite very earnest attempts to remain ambiguous until the bitter end.

Real or Not?

Another point is this: the fantasy world in “Mirrormask” parallels, represents, or relates to events in the “real” world. In “Pan’s Labyrinth,” most of the fantasy comes across as minor Dungeons & Dragons quests, with only one particular instance having any relation to the film’s themes of fascism and free will. To what extent does the fantasy world in Pan’s Labyrinth represent a cheat as opposed to the counterpoint to a senseless tragedy? If the fantasy world is merely the product of Ofelia’s imagination, we are left with the notion that fantasy is nothing more than a coping mechanism in futile, hopeless situations. But this is a particularly unappealing kind of fatalism; fantasy that is useless remains useless, however imaginative.

If the fantasy world is real, however, then we’re still stuck with the question as to why we get so little of it. We get instead too much of the real world plot — involving the straightforward struggle between soldiers of a fascist regime and rebel guerrillas. And the moral of that part of the film only serves to illustrate the obvious: fascism is bad. Well, duh. Offering a compelling portrait of the evils of fascism, but no insight or solutions, is too simple to be anything other than philosophically banal.

More significantly, the fantasy world’s reality within the film raises unappealing questions as to whether the answer to human follies like war and fascism is simply not to be human at all. At least, that’s the implication from the narrator’s telling of a fairy tale in which a princess from an idyllic underworld visits the surface, loses her memory and suffers all the ills that comes with being human, including death.

As wonderful and hefty a movie as “Pan’s Labyrinth” is in some respects, the choice between fantasist fatalism or anti-humanism is a poor one. It’s a thematic weakness that drags down an otherwise compelling film.