Guillermo del Toro remembers being asked during the original Pan’s Labyrinth press tour why he’d criticize fascism when it had already been eradicated. His answer compared it to bell-bottom pants: “it comes back.”
Recounting that exchange to Maria Hinojosa on Latino USA, he said fascism persists because some people “hate as a life force.” He described that hatred as rooted in something they can’t resolve within themselves: “it really is self-hatred, that’s the one they cannot solve. So they try to hate others.”
Pan’s Labyrinth places that struggle in 1944 Francoist Spain. While Captain Vidal pursues the remaining Republican guerrillas, his stepdaughter Ofelia discovers a labyrinth.
In a December 2006 interview with Mark Kermode, del Toro called fascism “an institutional lack of choice,” setting it against the choices the girl makes throughout the film.
The conversation with Hinojosa comes as Pan’s Labyrinth returns to theaters for its 20th anniversary. Its announced US and Canada run is October 9–15, 2026.
