The Untold Truth Of Pan's Labyrinth

If one thing makes del Toro stand out from his peers, it's the enormous range of influences he draws from. He takes the obvious ones from popular culture — cartoons, comic books, horror movies — but he's also exceptionally well-read and finds ways to combine nearly everything he learns in ways that obliterate the traditional high art/low art divide. 

For instance, in "Cabinet of Curiosities," he reveals the origin of the Book of Crossroads, which starts blank and writes itself based on Ofelia's choices: "The Book of Sand" and "The Garden of Forking Paths," two stories by the Argentine author Jorge Luis Borges that explore the idea of an infinite book. In "Garden," the seemingly inconsistent book is actually a "labyrinth" that shows the results of every possible decision by its characters. Meanwhile, the Book of Sand is a literally infinite text that seems to grow new pages every time the narrator tries to turn back to the beginning or ending.

Considered the father of magical realism, Borges' approach was much like del Toro's. The French author Andre Maurois has said, "Borges has read everything, and especially what no one reads anymore." "Garden" alone combines spy thrillers, WWI historian Liddell Hart, Plato, Newton, Roman chronicles, and Classical Chinese novels. In a way, the whole concept of "Pan's Labyrinth" owes something to Borges, since labyrinths are such an essential image — not just to "Garden" but all his writing — that one of the most popular English translations of his work is called "Labyrinths."