A film for anyone who hasn't slaughtered the child within

Rating: 10/10 (28 January 2007)

Tremendously, poignantly sad, Pan's Labyrinth is a masterpiece of cinema.
Pan's Labyrinth is equivalent to our daily experience--in which we wake up every morning bathed in the reality that life is not all perfect, fluffy Disney movies. In fact, life often seems unbalanced in favor of the pain and anguish department. Moments of joy, happiness, love, security, satisfaction--every experience of positive emotion--are fleeting, more mirage than solid reality.
Pan's Labyrinth speaks to the child wearing an adults shell. It speaks to our sense of horror at the world and life we're surrounded with. Agreeably, few of us endure the horrors, pain, fear, and despair of Ofelia's life, but by painting Ofelia's demons and nightmares as vividly as she experienced them, our daily struggles are immortalized, honored. We, vicariously through Ofelia, feel that perhaps there's a reason we endure the turmoil of life. Perhaps we too are princes and princesses, destined for greater things. Pan's Labyrinth is a movie for thinking people; a movie for those who feel like there must be more; a movie for anyone who's ever struggled onward, day to day, winning small battles but feeling they're loosing the larger war.
Pan's Labyrinth is not for the faint of heart, nor for those who've slaughtered the child within on the alter of harsh reality. Pan's Labyrinth is for everyone else.