“Pans Labyrinth” A Masterful Adult Fairy Tale That Will Make You Believe.
By: Tim - aurora - Dunn

World War II was a dark and troublesome time for the entire world. Harder still were countries such as Spain that along with WW II was also afflicted with a Civil war of it's own. In this bleak world and nearly hopeless time Guillermo del Toro brings to life a masterful new fairy tale. For almost a century Disney has treated the youth of the world to fantasy world after fantasy world. Almost all of these tales painted in traditional and as of late CG images. Finally there comes a tale not for children but one for adults. A fairy tale story of the lost soul of a princess from a magically beautiful Underworld. A tale that is so strong and gripping in its story telling and life like visual effects that by the end you believe the possibility that such a place filled with mystical and evil creatures actually exists.

This is a complex tale of two worlds interwoven together in the hopelessness of Spain in 1944 as Franco's fascist forces strike brutally at any resistance groups to its regime. Here we meet Ofelia (Ivana Baquero), daughter of a dead shoe peddler and a mother, Carmen (Ariadna Gil) who is married to the ruthless Captain Vidal (Sergi López). Yes even in del Toro's tales we get evil step parents but this one would torture and kill his own daughters as well as the daughter he does not claim. The backdrop of the story revolves around Captain Vidal's mission to not just squash but to totally erase the local bands of resistance.

We first see Ofelia and Carmen on the road in route to the ancient forest outpost where Captain Vidal is stationed. ALong this road Ofelia finds a stone with a carving on it. A short distance later she finds a glyph encrusted stella wherein she notices the stone's carving to be the eye from a wondrous King carved into the stella. As she places the stone back into it's rightful place a rather ominous creature appears who Ofelia at once recognizes as a fairy. A fairy that recognizes the spirit buried inside her mortal body as the reincarnation of the Underworlds King's daughter. She being literally the light and life in the Kings eye and long prophesied to return to him.

It’s only a short time before Ofelia is introduced to the Labyrinth and later, lead by the same fairy, into the depths of the Labyrinth where she meets a Faun, Pan (Doug Jones), that decrees her future to her if she is capable of fulfilling three tasks before the next full moon. Ofelia accepts a magical book from Pan which will show her what she must do to complete these tasks. These tasks are filled with darkness, horrors and monsters not of this world. This is the main story of the movie but lies expertly woven into the horrifing threads of the Spanish civil war.

Along with the journey of Ofelia to complete her tasks are the stories of her mother suffering a hard pregnancy with Captain Vidal’s child. Theres also the story of Captain Vidal's personal maid and assistant Mercedes(Maribel Verdú), who is actually in league with the Captains doctor and her brother in their resistance against the merciless and bloody Franco government.

The story of the civil war stands as a powerful and remarkable story all on its own and in and of itself is worthy of all the acclaim this movie as achieved. But it’s the fantasy world brought to life by del Toro that is the true magic of this story. The visual effects are stunning and rival if not even surpasses those of any movie of this last year. The satyr faun is not the funsicle one like we saw in 'The Chronicles of Narnia' nor are the monsters, fairies and other creatures in this story. These creatures are dark, deadly and spine chilling. The kind of perfectly played creatures that will give young children nightmares for years, and maybe more then a few parents. This is truly a story meant for adults and one that adults of all types will love.

del Toro does a masterful job on the lighting and lack there of in this movie. As in 'The Fountain' this story is told with light and colors but done more subtly and actually better in its own way. While its darkness is something to make an old X-Files fan happy there’s also a small amount of light to provide some type of hope even in the worst events until the end where light and life triumphs in a sad yet fulfilled glory.

Conclusion:
Pans Labyrinth is a dark, chilling, masterful tale that will be in its viewer’s hearts and minds for decades to come. Critics have given this movie extremely high praise and it has already won many, many awards as rightfully it should. The acclaim it has received is no spoof, this is the real fairy tale for the real adult. I would in fact caution adults very strongly against letting children younger then teens to see this movie. There is extremely graphical war scenes and as I mentioned these are not Disney monsters these are the real ones that haunt even the most jaded movie go'er. That and the fact that the story is much more evolved then your traditional Disney story, the young may not even understand what is really happening. While it can be an extremely simple and enjoyable story to just sit back and enjoy without digging into the deeper philosophy and stories this tale has to offer, but the true strength of the movie lies in its deep richness.

Also note that, as most already know, this movie is in Spanish with English sub-titles. But please don’t even think twice about seeing this movie because of its sub-titles. My extremely limited Spanish sufficed for a lot of the dialog. In fact the dialog and the sub-titles are such that you will not miss a single pixel of this movie nor its words and meaning.

Ratings:

IMDB Film Ratting - 8.4 out of 10 stars with 9.026 votes at the time of this review.

- For a movie going experience I give “Pans Labyrinth” - 5 out of 5 stars.
This is a complex tale of war and escaping from the darkness into light and told as an extrodinary fairy tale.

- For a technical piece of CG and VFX work I give it a - 4.9 out of 5 stars.
While the visual effects were not 100% perfect its ability to mesh CG with a war torn world was beyond remarkable.

For me this was the best picture of last year!

Credits:

Cast:
Ofelia -Ivana Baquero
Carmen Vidal - Ariadna Gil
Capitán Vidal - Sergi López
Mercedes - Maribel Verdú
Pan/Pale Man - Doug Jones
Dr. Ferreiro - Álex Angulo
Garcés - Manolo Solo
Pedro - Roger Casamajor

Crew:
Executive Producers: Belén Atienza, Elena Manrique
Producers: Bertha Navarro, Alfonso Cuarón, Frida Torresblanco, Álvaro Augustín, Guillermo del Toro

Cinematography: Guillermo Navarro

Film Editing: Bernat Vilaplana

Casting: Sara Bilbatúa

Production Design: Eugenio Caballero

Costume Design: Lala Huete, Rocío Redondo

Digital Effect: CafeFX, Inc.

Special Effects: Reyes Abades

Original Music: Javier Navarrete

Running time -- UK:119 min/USA:112 min/Canada:112 min
MPAA rating: Rated R for graphic violence and some language