A fantastic contrast of fantasy and the horrors of the Spanish civil war (a wine bottle never looked so dangerous)

Rating: Null/10 (30 August 2006)

This film is a companion piece to the Devil's Backbone and has a similar stylistic feel to it as well as his previous independent film Cronos.
The effects are fantastic and show how cgi use should be kept to a minimum unless you have a vast budget, as most of the effects in this are real and not computer generated. They lend perfectly as a contrast to the reality of the protagonist's everyday life with her new 'father', who is fascist regional co-ordinator and egomaniacal bastard and her mum, who is pregnant with his child.
There is more aspects to the film than this but i feel that it would be best to reveal as little as possible to allow you pleasure of finding out for yourselves.
Del Toro says he feels this film is perfect as far as he is concerned and i find it hard to fault him on that statement.
A fine film which isn't a fantasy film, or a war film, or a horror, but has aspect of all.
A grown up fairy tale.
Fantastic. Literally.