Didn't do much for me at all.

Rating: 5/10 (14 April 2008)

El Laberinto del Fauno is set in Spain in 1944 during the Civil War, a widow named Carmen (Ariadna Gil) marries Captain Vidal (Sergi López) the sadistic ruler of a group of Nationalist soldiers. Carmen & her 11 year old daughter Ofelia (Ivana Baquero) move out to an old Mill in the countryside where Captain Vidal & his men are stationed trying to crush local rebel resistance. There Ofelia is lured into an ancient stone labyrinth by a fairy & down some steps into a magical fantasy realm, there she meets a creature called a Faun (Doug Jones) who says she was once the Princess of the magical realm & gives her three task's so she can reclaim her rightful place once again...
This American, Spanish & Mexican co-production was written, produced & directed by Guillermo del Toro & after winning innumerable awards, accolades & critical acclaim I was expecting something a bit special which unfortunately wasn't forthcoming. Known more commonly under the title of Pan's Labyrinth in English speaking territories all the hype & advance publicity surrounding El Laberinto del Fauno stated that it was one of the best fantasy films of all time & like a fool I brought into it. The script by Toro is much, much more of a war time drama as it spends the vast majority of it's duration on the frankly depressing real life conflict between Spanish soldiers & rebels. In fact El Laberinto del Fauno is more of a drama than anything else, the quaint & sometimes charming fantasy elements are few & far between with only three or four notable sequences. When it focuses on Ofelia's fantasy world then it's often spellbinding but when it switches to the war time dramas it's horrible. When I watch a film I want to be entertained, nothing more nothing less. Watching El Laberinto del Fauno I was throughly depressed, it's hardly an uplifting tale & one that left me rather down. That's not what I want to feel like when watching a film, I'm sorry buts that the way it is. Some moments are genuinely unsettling & even upsetting to the extent that I sometimes found it quite hard to watch. The script leaves a lot of things open to the viewers interpretation but I thought it was pretty clear, the fantasy elements never really gel with the grim war time dramatics & the two make for uneasy bedfellows.
Director Toro does a great job although I must admit I don't quite get what he was trying to do here. It's a tale of a girls imagination & hope but in the end he seems to want to crush any hope of any uplifting message in favour of some truly horrible moments of real life brutality, violence, torture & death. Some of the scenes in El Laberinto del Fauno are very disturbing, from people beaten to death, tortured, sliced open mouths & lots of bad things happening to good people. Presented entirely in Spanish with English subtitles I don't know about anyone else but while I'm reading the subtitles I can't get a good look at what's happening on screen, it's impossible, very frustrating & annoying. The special effects are pretty good, some of the CGI effects are a little below par I suppose but the make-up effects & creature design is very good. I wouldn't say El Laberinto del Fauno is scary but some of the character's do some really horrific things.
Technically the film is very good, actually shot in Spain the production values are great & it's well made. The acting is excellent which makes it all the more powerful, whether that's a good thing I am not sure.
El Laberinto del Fauno is a film lots of people seem to like for reasons which escape me, I thought it was a throughly depressing & disheartening experience that I have no desire to revisit. It has it's moments on occasion & it's often quite powerful stuff but that doesn't mean it makes good entertainment which I happen to think it isn't.