you'd have to do it

Rating: 10/10 (19 May 2007)

Usually, I never would have imagined Franco's Spain as the setting for a fantasy, but "El laberinto del fauno/Pan's Labyrinth" does a great job with it. I really liked the contrast between the real events and Ofelia's (Ivana Vaquero) chimera world containing some strange - seemingly brutal - characters, and the real world containing the authentic brutality of Capt. Vidal (Sergi Lopez). As mystifying as it as disturbing, this movie gives one a sense of what it was like to live then. No doubt the near phantasmagoria of the girl's imaginary world is nothing compared to the torture that Capt. Vidal inflicts on prisoners.
Overall, this is one that I really recommend. Guillermo Del Toro (of "Cronos" and "Mimic" fame) scored another good one here. I can't do justice to it by trying to describe it; you have to see it. It certainly deserved its Oscar win.