Reality vs. Illusion

Rating: 10/10 (9 February 2007)

Now listen, I don't usually shower films with perfect tens, let alone those that are yet to stand the test of time, but I have to be honest here: I can't find anything tangibly wrong with Guillermo del Toro's "Pan's Labyrinth". Set against the backdrop of Franco's fascist repression in 1944, a young girl descends into fabled fantasy to escape the harsh reality of her step-father reign. This beautiful set-up is sheer darkly goosebumps-inducing magic, and the bitter everyday drama is almost as bitingly compelling.
"Pan's Labyrinth" is in this way neatly-composed of two parallel stories operating seamlessly in the same film, interweaving bucketloads of suspense in every single shot. On the realistic, reality-based end of the spectrum, we have Sergi López as the repressive big-shot Capitán Vidal, Ofelia's step-father. Although the latter brings wonderful wide-eyed intensity to her leading role, it is truly López who projects the most charisma in his performance, creating not a caricature of a villain, but a fully-fledged powerhouse of a tyrant.
Ofelia is not as well-acted as she is well-written, it needs to be said. Yet this is understandable, for Del Toro gives us a no-holds-barred likable heroine who displays some of the most fearless antics you will see in films this year. She crawls through muddy hellholes with bugs on her legs. She visits demons. When she sees the iconic fearsome faun again, she runs up and hugs him. When her mother asks her to tell her unborn child a soothing bed-time story, Ofelia tells him dark nightmares, because they're stories to her.
As for cinematography and the likes, the more CGI there is in a film, the more heart it needs to project. "Pan's Labyrinth" passes this criteria with flying colours because although the heaviest weapon in Guillermo Del Toro's directorial arsenal is undeniably his dark visuals, the wrapping story is so tear-jerkingly compelling that CGI typically takes a backseat to the drama in the film. The score, lullabies and all, is unspeakably disturbing  which tells me it is scored perfectly to a fantasy epic like this.
Yes, "Pan's Labyrinth" is a foreign film, foreign not only in its speaking language, but in its visual linguistics and imagination. The whole world created on the colour-awash screen is alien to most people, and atmospheric originality goes a long way. In the end, the film is a self-spun cocoon of childhood magic laced with dark notions, something like a NC-17 version of Alice in Wonderland  something absolutely extraordinary.
10 out of 10