This autumn marks the 20th anniversary of Pan’s Labyrinth, Guillermo del Toro’s elaborate and deeply sorrowful film about a young girl caught between two dangerous worlds in rural Spain in 1944.

The film tells the story of Ofelia (Ivana Baquero), who finds herself shifting between the “real” above-ground world half a decade after the end of the Spanish civil war, and an underground “fantasy” realm where ancient forces recognise her as a lost princess.

It is a perennially relevant tale of tyrannical power and those who rebel against it. Highly lauded on its release, the film’s stature has grown in the last two decades. It appears in prestigious international polls of the greatest films of the 21st century, and many view it as the pinnacle of del Toro’s body of work to date.

One reason the film resonates with audiences and critics alike is its compelling, dense visual language. This abundance of symbolic images draws on del Toro’s impressive capacity to use grandiose mythic signs infused with pop-cultural emblems.

The iconic Pale Man (Doug Jones), for example, is an amalgam of Francisco Goya’s Saturn Devouring His Son and a poster for Don Coscarelli’s 1979 horror film Phantasm.

Ofelia’s liminal existence is reflected through........

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