Stunning

Rating: 9/10 (18 March 2007)

What's a heartbreaking fairy tale! It's definitely one of the best films of 2006, I'm so pleased it won 3 Oscars a few weeks ago, and as I also love "The Lives Of Others", so I'm not so shocked by its winning best foreign film over "Pan's Labyrith", and as a matter of fact, that's the perfect result.
Since this film has been so popular these days, i will just skip the scenario and say something after watching it for 2 times, I hardly watch a film more than once in such a short interval while I have so many films to watch and too little time to finish this mission-impossible.
As the scenes are changing between the real cruel revolution war and imaginary fantasy world, that's to say, really a tough task for the photography, and this movie rocks because it's perfectly well done at this aspect. Also the amazing visual effects of the mythical parts, totally stunning! The portrait of characters is also worthing acclaim, especially for Sergi Lopez as the sinister Captain, Sergi shines in every scene he is in, his cocky arrogance and brutal deviltries are vivid enough to leave a deep impression in my heart. And I also find Maribel Verbu stands out as a strong, righteous undercover maid, she is aging so severely compared to in "And Your Mother Too", perhaps it's the makeup and the rugged clothes she wears. But a very powerful performance! Besides, the young new actress Ivana Baquero also gives a decent performance as the innocent girl.
And one annoying thing in the plot is that the little girl cannot resist the lure of delicious grapes even she is warned before, I know it's maybe hard to make it plausible, and it's just the need for the storyline, I think this is quite a big flaw there and really bothers me, if not for that, I will give it a 10/10 rating.
In my deep heart I am a pessimistic person and lack of confidence, I feel terribly sorry for the ending, not because I don't believe in fairy tales, but I cannot get rid of the shadows of death that occupies all over my mind. In a world like today, really hard for me to be cheered up, this film teach us some different way of regarding life and the world, see the bright side and meantime don't forget the dark one, this could the perfect dilemma for human beings to handle with and enjoy it. Live in pain but happily! Suddenly a strange signal came through my mind, I should watch "Borat" sometime! Omg, this has never occurred to me before!