Visual Poetry

Rating: 10/10 (18 June 2007)

Very early in this film, I formed an interpretation which I believe to be completely correct, and borne out by the plot, details, and symbolism in the film. I will not share that interpretation here. All that I will say about it is that despite knowing where the film would end up and why, I thoroughly enjoyed the journey, and was surprised by many aspects of the film along the way.
Written and directed by rising Mexican directorial star Guillermo Del Toro, Pan's Labyrinth is set in Spain during the Franco years. The story's heroine is a young girl named Ofelia (Ivana Baquero) and the story is told mostly from her perspective. Ofelia lives in two worlds, the miserable abomination that Spain has become under fascist control, and a world of magic in which she has learned that she may just be a reincarnated princess who has to undergo a series of trials posed by the faun 'Pan' prior to being reunited after several hundred years with her father, the king. These two worlds come together at several points in the narrative, where Ofelia needs the magic of Pan's world to resolve problems in her other realm.
Ofelia's other realm is populated by her pregnant mother, who is the only parent she has known, her reluctantly adoptive father (the father of the child her mother is to bear), who is a fascist commanding an outpost in which they reside. There are several other prominent characters including members of a resistance movement a caring housekeeper and a doctor employed by the fascists.
The acting is all excellent, especially the heavy (Sergi Lopez), Ofelia, and Mercedes the housekeeper (Maribel Verdu). But the story and the exceptional fluidity with which the camera and sound tell it are the real stars here. There are no wasteful scenes in this film though, to be sure there are some painful and disturbing ones.
Although I have enjoyed some of Del Toro's work previously, this is the most serious, intense, and well made film I have thus far seen from him. Everything about this perfectly coherent film works, from both an aesthetic and practical point of view. Pan's Labyrinth has reached my top 5 for 2006.
Very highly recommended.