The Institutional Contexts of Pan's Labyrinth and City of God

One institutional context to consider in relation to Pan's Labyrinth is that it belongs to European cinema - distinct in style and audience to mainstream Hollywood cinema. There are over fifty countries in Europe and just as it is often tricky to define exactly what Europe is as an entity, the same can be said for what constitutes European cinema. Each country, including Spain (where Pan's Labyrinth was produced) will explore its own political, social and cultural past and present (as Pan's Labyrinth does) within its national cinema - often tackling issues that are more easily recognised by a domestic rather than an international audience (the Spanish Civil War, for example). Some European countries may have a structured film industry producing both mainstream commercial movies and Independent arthouse films, whilst other countries may have little or no film industry of note. Many of the European films that are praised at film festivals and subsequently distributed internationally tend to be the countries' arthouse output and not necessarily indicative of the films being watched domestically. These European films' aesthetics will be governed by the institutional and cultural context in which they are produced (the same can be said about world cinema and film's such as Brazil's City of God). The BFI Statistical Yearbook 2017, which examined UK film production and cinema-going in the UK in 2016, reported that there were 165 European (excluding UK) films shown in UK cinemas. These accounted for just over 20% of all films released in the UK and grossed £40 million - a 3.2% share of the UK box-office. In comparison there were 217 American films (26.4%) shown in the UK (many of them big-budget Hollywood blockbusters but also some which could be classed as American Independnet films) accounting for nearly 60% of box-office takings (grossing over £740 million. Films like Pan's Labyrinth (and City of God) are, then, marginal films that often struggle to find a mainstream audience.

The film was released in the UK by Optimum Releasing (now a branch of StudioCanal) a company with a strong track record of releasing foreign language films to the UK market. The filme premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2006, to great acclaim. It was co-produced, as is typical of foreign language films, by a number of production comanies (in this case from Spain, Mexico and America) with its $19 million budget (small compared to big-budget Hollywood movies which dominate the UK box-office, but relatively large for a foreign language film) reflecting the complex production design, period dressing and relatively large cast. The eventual worldwide box-office takings of $83.3 million was seen as a triumph.

It is clear that Del Toro has a significant amount of freedom as an auteur working with independent production companies who have allowed him to develop a style and thematic preoccupations that he returns to over and again in the films he makes. As an auteur he frequently works within the fantasy/horror genres both in his films produced outside of Hollywood (Cronos, The Devil's Backbone, The Shape of Water and Crimson Peak) and those he has made within the Hollywood system (Hellboy, Hellboy II the something Army and Pacific Rim). Such is the level of his control, he even wrote the subtitles for Pan's Labyrinth after becoming disillusioned with the translation of The Devil's Backbone (a film that also features the Spanish Civil War as its backdrop).