Revision

Themes:
CoG + Pan's shares themes of youth and innocence/violence.
La Haine, CoG and Pan's has a theme of government oppression
Government oppression destroys innocence.
Universal themes = sells well world wide.
National Cinema - challenges the dominant ideology of the country
Rules - Hollywood conventions
Narratives
La Haine - cycle of violence
CoG - many separate cycles of violence with intertwining stories from an observer viewpoint
Pan's - intetwining stories
Genre
La Haine - Social realist, crime, youth drama which aspires to be a gangster film.
Pan's - fantasy, war film, horror
CoG - gangster film, war film

La Haine - Context

Kassovitz was influenced by the death of Makome M'Bowole by a police man.
Front national (French equivalent of the BNP).
Immigrants were marginalised
Conflict in the banlieues slums. (Riots)
Student Riots
Slavery in France in 1780
High immigration in the 1930's
Battle of the Algiers

La Haine - Messages

Government oppression causes inequalities in society
These inequalities create a cycle of conflict which they cannot escape from.
Assimilation doesn't work
Power and conflict (reputation to gain respect)
Fraternity, Equality, Liberty (Traditional French values)
Middle Class people in France do not have Traditional French values.

Pans Labyrinth - narrative and messages

A lot of the narrative of Pan's labyrinth is focused around pan, a young innocent child who cannot cope with the conditions of the Spanish Civil War and deludes herself into a fantasy world to protect herself. Pan's delusions affect the narrative, this may have been how the director was trying to get across his message.

Del Toro may have wanted to bring to lofe the severity of the Spanish Civil War to the Spanish people and to highlight it's effects on children like Pan. Since children are the future of society he could be trying to represent this as war damaging Spanish societies future pushing forward a political message, representing on screen how Spain has gone wrong in the past in a hope for a better future.

Like La Haine, Pan's Labyrinth plays with the idea of a cycle of violence within it's narrative,  no matter how much Pan or Hubert try to escape conflict that's is what they get thrown back in to at the end. I believe Del Toro and Kassovitz have done this to possibly sent a message suggesting that no matter what you believe in, the belief alone will not be enough for you to achiebe your goals. Instead, you must use that belief to fuel your determination to reach your goal rather than relying on a belief to save you.

Del Toro may have used Pan's fantasy characters like the demon who eats children from Spanish folklore to possibly highlight his opinion of the soldiers deeds during the Spanish Civil War. Just like how one of the high ranking officers would manipulate the poor by hoarding all the food for himself like how the demon used the food to lure in children to consume.

City of God - Conflict