In the films The Orphanage (El orfanato) and Pan’s Labyrinth (El laberinto del fauno), the viewer looks through windows into two very separate worlds – reality and fantasy.
The world of reality is that which the narrative of the film is grounded in. The majority of the plot’s characters live in reality – they never (if only perhaps in an epiphany at the movie’s ending) interject into the world of fantasy.
The world of fantasy, then, is a private world that requires a certain privilege to access. In both of these films, that privilege is gained from faith in the fantastic.
Both films feature a protagonist who is able to interact with the world of non-reality – fantasy – and tertiary characters who seem oblivious to that same existence. In the ghost story The Orphanage, a mother figure (Laura) suspects that her son’s “imaginary” friends have kidnapped him. In order to find him, she must “believe” (quoting from the movie itself) in the fantasy that the child (as well as the paranormal mediums who she enlists for her aid) believed in.
What makes both films very interesting is that the existence of a fantasy world is neither entirely denied nor validated. If one wishes to believe that all of the “ghosts” that Laura sees in the orphanage are non-existent, merely imagined, and therefore have no influence on the events of the plot – this is entirely permissible. Or, if we wish to believe that the “ghosts” are involved in the disappearance of her son – that too is permissible, and in the context of the film, believable.
Similarly, in Pan’s Labyrinth, if we choose to think that Ofelia has simply imagined the faun, the movie doesn’t reject this philosophy.
With each film’s ending, we see that fantasy can be real – but only if we believe in it. Reality requires no belief to exist – its existence is very straightforward, one might say effortless.
For fantasy to be realized, though, it requires effort and perseverance. Moreoever, it requires imagination.
Fantasy has always played an important role in popular cultural mediums. After The Beatles flirted through episodes of teenage love and lust, they moved into a stage of songwriting that was more concerned with the unreal and imaginable. Fantasy is central to the most popular literature in the world: Harry Potter, Twilight, The Lord of The Rings, etc.
Indeed, imagination goes hand-in-hand with creativity – the engine of the arts.
In some mediums, fantasy is easily the most prominent mode of narrative.
Videogames offer fantasy in various forms. Playing fantasy instruments with a band; exploring a fantastic alien world; soldering alongside imaginary troopers. All of these things tend to give us access to an experience that is elusive in reality.
In many cases, our imaginations become so enamored with these virtual experiences that we find a certain faith in the unreal.
Rocking out to a verse of “Get Back” on The Beatles: Rock Band with a group of friends, it isn’t hard to get carried away with ourselves, believing in the similarity of that experience to that of an actual rock band.
Massively Multiplayer Online Games (e.g. World of Warcraft) fans are a prime example of players becoming emotionally invested in fantasy, to the point of subscribing a certain faith to their imaginary experience.
In music, faith in fantasy is often central to enjoying content. Even little shits listening to gangsta rap hold belief in fantasy – vicariously experiencing the “fun” of an action-packed lifestyle full of bling, hoes and glocks in spite of their comfortable suburban lifestyles.
Again, though, in The Orphanage there is a parallel existence of fantasy and reality – we don’t get just one or the other.
Such parallel systems can be found, one might argue, in art’s ability to be grounded in reality yet still be capable of transgressing into sublime fantasy. After all, a great album like Sgt. Pepper‘s is still just a collection of sounds made by instruments and people. The art is created in our reality by completely “normal” objects. Yet when we put faith in the music – and believe that we’re listening to more than just a collection of abject noise – we’re able to break the boundary into fantasy.
Likewise, it’s this faith in meaning beyond in a videogame – merely a collection of computer codes and scripts – that encourages us to suspend our disbelief and enter into a new realm of thought.
Faith in fantasy, then, requires a simultaneous faith in reality’s capability for opening the path to the unreal.
