What they won't tell you, of course, is ...

Rating: 1/10 (15 May 2007)

PRACTICAL PIECE OF ADVICE: IF YOU KNOW ANYONE WHO ENJOYED THIS FILM, DON'T LET THEM BABYSIT YOUR KIDS!!!
This highly critically praised "magical fairy-tale" is rated R for a very good reason. In its 120 "enchanting" minutes, I counted no less than 85 homicides, all extremely and graphically violent, many by the most sadistic and revolting means imaginable and all guaranteed to repulse. For good measure, this "surrealistic escapade into a childhood land of imagination and wonder" also has as many body fluid scenes as any Texas Chainsaw Massacre sequel: after the obligatory appetizers of vomit, muck and slime, blood starts pissing from open wounds, a pregnant woman has "complications", hatred and violence being the prime motivators of all characters, an innocent peasant has his face literally caved in with a wine bottle for no apparent reason in front of his father, who is also killed for no reason, a mandrake root is fed the blood of a little girl, squalor is rampant, there is a completely gratuitous amputation scene (what serious film could be without it?) and an equally gratuitous do-it-yourself plastic surgery scene, scenes of disfigurement, military executions and cold-blooded torture, and, for good measure, even cute little pixies get decapitated along the narrative way. In this sophisticated age, it is assumed sufficient for the viewer to know that this is "an intriguing film", made by someone from a foreign country and with an imposing-sounding name and that it is "thought-provoking". It would be considered in bad taste or simply jejune to mention that this kind of film can seriously harm a child and is certainly warping quite a few adult minds as we speak. Or that it is a seriously depressing and morbid gore-fest from beginning to end and a revolting and cynical misappropriation of the spirit of childhood and poetry by deeply troubled minds working under the banner of lowest-common-denominator CGI-augmented slasher horror and freedom of expression.
Everybody in America is falling over each other in praising this film but very few critics have noticed that what makes this film "the ultimate fantasy film" (i.e. totally cut-off from reality) is not its subject matter but the fact that it is set in Franco's Spain, yet fails to mention the Catholic Church in any way, shape or form (priests, rituals, imagery, symbolism, role in the repression of socialism), a feat comparable to making a film about Iraq that would fail to mention the existence of Muslims. Yet, its moral seems to be that "there is no greater love than to die for those you love", a Christian principle that is rather irreconciliable with the fantasy universe's pagan philosophy.
Although not aimed at children (its violence is much too repulsive for that), this so-called fairy-tale for adults is sufficiently childish on every other level to appeal to the lowest common denominator. It was conceived after all by a filmmaker who specializes in comicbook adaptations - the new "literature" of dyslexic America.
But I am mostly infuriated by the false advertising. This is a gory, harmful, snuff-porn, slasher film masquerading as an art film: Its tagline might as well be "Hey, guys, it's got subtitles, so you know it's good for you!" The people who are taken in by this trash are mostly young Americans, ignorant about history or the world around them, and who are fans of violent, sadistic cinema. It was conceived by a man with a troubled mind and no interest in reality, whose main obsessions are violent death and dismemberment. It would appeal to a people who has repeatedly failed to count the casualties in a war they have started in Iraq because it is good TV entertainment and good business and it is set in a faraway land they couldn't even pinpoint on a map of the world.
Historical footnote: The film also fails as history. Its simplistic Saturday-morning-cartoon fascists-are-bad moral fails to take into account the fact that the most egregious atrocities of the Spanish Civil War were committed by Communists and Socialists, which turned world opinion against their revolution. The pope still has 9,000 Spanish Catholic martyrs on his canonization roster. This film is an insensitive insult to the Spanish people who is still trying to come to terms with that horror in its daily life. Mr. Del Toro should definitely confine his talents to adapting comic books for slow-witted American teenagers.