ambitious

Rating: 7/10 (9 December 2006)

This is an ambitious movie. It yokes together two completely contrasting methods of story-telling, two totally different atmospheres. One is a very violent portrayal of a local battle between the two sides of the Spanish Civil War; the other is the imaginative response of a young girl to those same horrors, as she seeks not only refuge but also some kind of explanation in fantastic tales, in which she is cast in the principal role.
The trouble is that the political/historical story is also, of course, a fiction, no matter how typical or based on real events it may or may not be. In its own way it is as much a tale as the dazzling fantasy that the director puts before us. Nevertheless we are invited to look upon the historical plot somewhat differently - not least because "real"characters often remind the young girl that she spends far too much time in the realm of childish stories, and that she should grow up and see the world as it is.
The means by which this real Spain is conveyed to the audience is by a violence so spectacularly nasty that, hardened movie goer though I am, I could barely look at some of it. And yet in at least one of the fantasy sequences there is a grizzly horror that is also hard to look at. So there is a blurring, either deliberate or accidental - perhaps the fantasy world can be seen as the projection of the violence the young girl senses at first but then is increasingly part of. There is certainly a blurring of distinctions between the two worlds.
This blurring is emphasised by two decisions. One is the portrayal of the principal male character, the fascist captain, as a vicious sadist, as immoral a villain as the giants or wolves of traditional fairy-tales,The other decision is the portrayal of his main antagonist, a brave freedom fighter, as his moral polar opposite, and who triumphs by means of a deus ex machina that seems quite as bizarre as Glinda the Good Witch turning up. And yet this world is supposed to be a real? Maybe the writer/director is making a point about what civil war is like. Maybe it's based on a real event that actually occurred: well, real events don't necessarily make good, believable fiction. Whatever the motivation for it, in the final analysis this blurring between the two stories weakens the story of the partisans. It makes them not quite believable, and therefore, for me, robs the daring end of the film of some power.
All that said, the movie is amazing to look at, is very well acted, and, providing you've got the stomach for the more vicious stuff, worth seeing. It's definitely worth supporting a film like this that aims high, even if it doesn't quite get there.