One of the best films ever made.....

Rating: 10/10 (24 May 2015)

You would think that, with 1000 or so positive reviews, one more would not matter? However, this is not only one of the most extraordinary films ever made, it is also a personal fave which I have seen many times.
Comments include:
* can Guillermo del Toro actually make a bad film? I don't think so. Because of his name on the credits I have checked out many films of his that, while not in the same class as this one, were nonetheless flawless in execution.
* of many film I have seen about war (too many to count) this one manages to humanize the condition to a greater degree than I can recall. Each character is perfectly cast with perfectly written dialog to bring home the metaphor of trying to live your life while chaos reigns around you. A little girl with a sick pregnant mother who just lost her father and finds her step-father to be a monster ... perfect!
* many films deliberately strive for that special "ambiguous" ending but this one nails it. I remember couples coming out out the theatre arguing over what the real purpose of the film was, what the real ending was, what the intent was, etc
* the one single scene where the young girl has to enter a subterranean land and retrieve artifacts WITHOUT EATING THE FOOD ON THE TABLE is in many ways scarier than the scariest horror films you could name. Moreso because the audience knows how hungry she was and empathizes. It reminded me of the Cyclops scene in the 1950s 7th Voyage of Sinbad, considered a classic of its own.
* the scenes of violence (and there are many) are done so well you can almost taste the copper in the blood on screen
One of the best films ever made