Guillermo del Toro Declares Art Can’t Be ‘Done With a F—ing App!’ as He Brings ‘Pan’s Labyrinth’ Back to Cannes After 20 Years: ‘The Second Worst Filmmaking Experience of My Life’

Guillermo del Toro‘s “Pan’s Labyrinth” hasn’t lost any of its power to dazzle the Cannes Film Festival over the last two decades. The fantasy movie world premiered in competition at the 2006 festival, where it earned instant acclaim and was met with a still-record holding 22-minute standing ovation. Del Toro returned to Cannes this year to debut a new 4K restoration of the movie, and the film was once again met with enthusiasm, with the Mexican auteur receiving several minutes of applause as he took the stage.

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“Twenty years ago, making this movie was like going against everything at all times,” del Toro said as the clapping stopped. “It was the second worst filmmaking experience of my life, the first one being ‘Mimic’ with the Weinsteins. That was horrible.”

He added that “Pan’s Labyrinth” was “very difficult in pre-production, no one wanted to finance it, and in production we had everything that could go wrong, go wrong. If I see you on the Croisette, I’ll tell you. And then, in post-production it was equally difficult.”

“Pan’s Labyrinth” stars Ivana Baquero as Ofelia, a young girl who escapes the horrors of 1944 Francoist Spain by traveling into a fantasy world where she befriends a mysterious faun and encounters dangerous monsters. The cast also includes Doug Jones, Maribel Verdú and Sergi López, who attended Cannes last year as the star of the Jury Prize-winning “Sirāt.” The movie was a box office hit in 2006 with $83 million worldwide and it was also an awards darling with six Oscar nominations, including original screenplay for Del Toro, and three wins for art direction, cinematography and makeup.

Del Toro recalled arriving in Cannes “just in time” with the print of the film, and the emotion of receiving the record-setting ovation. “[That’s] a commute!” he said of the ovation. “That’s what it takes you to go from your office to your house. And it was so weird because, in spite of my great body, I’m not used to adulation. It’s very hard for me to take love. And Alfonso Cuarón was there with me in the hallway and he said, ‘Let it in. Let the love get in.'”

Del Toro then took a serious tone as he acknowledged that “we are, unfortunately, in times that make this movie more pertinent than ever because they tell us everything is useless to resist, that art can be done with a fucking app, and we are facing things so formidable.”

“But I feel and I think, like the girl Ofelia in ‘Pan’s Labyrinth,’ if we can just leave a mark, if we can put our faith against our faith and our strength against our strength, there is hope,” he continued. “And the last thing we can have is to give to one of the two forces: we can give to love, or we can give to fear. Never, never, never give to fear.”

Variety raved about “Pan’s Labyrinth” in its review out of Cannes following the movie’s world premiere, with then-critic Justin Chang calling it a “richly imagined and exquisitely violent fantasy from del Toro” that “concocts a sinister spin on ‘Alice in Wonderland’ against the war-torn backdrop of 1940s Spain.”

“Pan’s Labyrinth” returned to Cannes this year as part of the festival’s Cannes Classics lineup. Del Toro personally supervised every stage of the new restoration from the original 35mm negative.

Naman Ramachandran contributed to this report.