Brutal violence, the Spanish civil war, and one cuddly faun...

The Spanish civil war was a dark time in Spain's history. The fascist general Franco's rise to power beckoned the needless deaths of countless innocent people. The atrocities of this war were captured in such famous works as Picasso's Guernica. Guillermo del Toro's film Pan's Labyrinth shows a child's perspective of the war's aftermath.

In Pan's Labyrinth, the main character, Ofelia, is taken to a cottage in the country with her pregnant mother to live with her new stepfather. Her stepfather is a captain in Franco's army, working to destroy the straggling resistance forces. While living in the cottage, Ofelia is exposed to the brutal violence of the war and creates her own fantasy world to help her cope.

In her fantasy world, she is the princess Moanna, who must complete a quest to return to her father's kingdom in the underworld. She is aided in her quest by the faun Pan and his fairies, and must face monsters such as the Pale Man and a giant toad.

The characters of Pan and the Pale Man were both played by actor Doug Jones (the only American who worked on the film). Jones is a character actor known for playing costumed and computer generated characters. His latest role was the body of the Silver Surfer (not the voice) in the most recent (and awful) Fantastic Four film.

Jones' character of the faun is a prominent part of the film. Pan acts as a guide to Ofelia on her journey to return to her kingdom. Pan is a massive, seven foot tall, faun with goat legs and a very expressive face. The Pan costume attached to Jones' body in several pieces, giving Jones a remarkable range of motion. The shoulder and stomach sections were separate, allowing Pan to move in a very fluid manner. The leg sections connected to his hips and were controlled partially by puppeteers and cgi to give make Pan's legs move in a more faun-like manner. Pan's facial movements were controlled partially by remote controlled servo motors. There was a servo controlling every facial feature, from the faun's eyebrows to it's lips. Getting into the Pan costume was a five-hour affair for Jones, as he recalls in this interview. Though the costume was fairly simple, make-up wise, because of its mechanical components, Jones had to sit and wait while the costume was plugged in and calibrated every morning.

Jones' other character in the film was the Pale Man, a monster who tries to attack Ofelia on one of her missions. The Pale man is a tall and bony bloodthirsty monster with skin sagging from his body. Oh yeah... he also has eyes in his hands. Though this character is only in one scene, Jones had to undergo about five hours of make-up every time this character was needed. The Pale Man costume was much more conventional than Pan's. It was mostly made up of prosthetics and body suits that were glued on. To keep the parts from sticking to Jones' body, the actor was covered in saran wrap over his torso, and the prosthetics were glued onto that. Once he got the mask on, Jones had to look out through the mask's nostrils, because the Pale Man's eyes were in his hands (of course...).

All in all, the combination of Jones' and his make-up team's work help create two truly memorable characters; one for being horrifying and the other for being expressive. These characters turn Pan's Labyrinth into a sort of shocking, yet human fairy tale.