Fantastic fantasy

Rating: Null/10 (16 December 2006)

This Spanish-language film is an utterly brilliant interweaving of two different tales from two totally different genres: one a story of the last stages of the Spanish Civil War in 1944 involving much violence and cruelty and the other a Gothic children's fantasy with various fantastical characters. What links the two narratives is the central personage of a young and brave girl called Ofelia (12 year old Ivana Baquero), the step-daughter of the brutal Spanish army captain (Sergi López) in the first story and the reincarnation of a lost underworld princess in the second.
This could so easily have been a ridiculous failure, but its stunning success is thanks to Mexican writer and director Guillermo del Toro who manages to make both tales both compelling and connected and, in the process, offers us some shocking characters - both human and fantasy - and many thought-provoking incidents and situations. He imbues the whole thing with washed-out colours and wonderful visual imagery. Del Toro has described the labyrinth as "a metaphor for Spain in extreme right and left transition to where it is now". This is most definitely not a film for children, but any adult who values innovative cinema will find this a rare treat.