spectacular!!!!

Rating: 10/10 (23 January 2007)

A film like Guillermo del Toro's "Pan's Labyrinth" rarely comes around. In it he has merged the epic fantasy with grisly war drama creating a brooding, horrific, yet blissful experience for the eyes and the mind. Its visual scope might be in the "Lord of the Rings" realm, yet del Toro keeps his film in under two hours. There's a sense of a far more mature "Neverending Story" during that film's second act. Maybe there are echoes of Alfonso Cuarón's brilliant "A Little Princess". Some of the drama comes from a child during wartime, like the harrowing tales told in "Forbidden Games" or "Hope & Glory". Sure, there's all of that and more in "Pan's Labyrinth", but honestly it defies all comparison and holds up as one of the most original works to hit screens in many years. It tells the story of a young girl as she travels with her pregnant mother through war-ravaged Spain to live with her new father, a downright evil man. Twelve year old Ivana Baquero offers a marvelous performance as the innocent yet confident, young yet intuitive, Ofelia, who discovers a certain refuge and power in a magical world of mystery and peril lurking within and beneath her new home. In a way the film rekindles that certain innocence in the viewer as well. As we follow this journey, we are bombarded with imagery that may even make the most jaded adult viewer squirm.