Hansel & Gretel and Pan's Labyrinth, guest starring Vincent

Hansel and Gretel (1983) is one of the first creations of Tim Burton and also with his partner in crime Rick Heinrichs. Together they both created both this, the short Vincent, Edward Scissorshands, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Sleepy Hollow among other collaborations.

Burton at the time of making both shorts worked for Disney as an animator, coming out of CalArts animation with other future Disney animators and also the likes of Brad Bird coming from the same class. Many of these animators were working on The Fox and the Hound (1981) and was one of the last films being animated by the legendary animators known as the “Nine Old Men”.

Disney history aside, the double feature of Vincent and Hansel & Gretel really encapsulates the essence of Tim Burton’s style. Vincent being a more macabre, angsty but charming stop motion short shot in black and white with heavy influence from German Expressionism with the wacky shadows and highly stylistic design character and sets that dominate Burton’s unique art style. Hansel and Gretel almost seem very opposite with such vibrante and sometimes clashing colors. Both however contain that same Gothic style in architecture and the various toys we see at the beginning of Hansel & Gretel and the characters in Vincent. 

But what we connect Hansel & Gretel to is Pan’s Labyrinth (2006)  and on the theme of disobedience to authority. For Labyrinth, it comes from Ofelia not doing what her mother wants, and rejecting the life under her Captain Vidal. It extends to her eventually not taking the Fawn’s warnings seriously when dealing with the Pale man and almost dies because of it. She also by the end outright doesn’t go through with the Fawn sacrificing her baby brother. Along with the civil war story on WWII Spain of a group of resistance fighters fighting back against Captain Vidal and the facist government he serves.

In Hansel & Gretel it’s a little more cut and dry where the titular siblings don’t particularly like their step mother and she doesn't like them either So when she leaves them for dead, they find a witch's house made of candy and after gaining their trust attempts to eat them but the kids make it out alive and return home with there step mom somehow gone and the two to live happily ever after with their father.

The big theme is undermining authority figures because of some perceived unjust rule over the protagonist's life. And then we see the same authoritative behavior by characters whom the protagonists come to trust before the trust is tested and for the Witch completely ruined. It’s not as cut and dry for the Fawn because it’s ultimately what allows Ofelia to return to the underground so the message of only you know what is the right thing to do is what prevails and individual freedom is what brings the bittersweet ending of Pan’s Labyrinth. 

 

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