Moving and powerful

Rating: 7/10 (9 December 2006)

del Toro interweaves the mundane and the magical in this account of a girl whose mother has married and been impregnated by a Fascist army captain during the Spanish civil war. The Captain has decided that the progeny will be a son, and that the son should be with the father. Therefore the heavily pregnant mother, with the daughter in tow, is carted into an army camp in the middle of the countryside deep within guerrilla territory. This gives the backdrop to the film, not only in terms of locale, but also the character played by Sergi López, whose portrayal of a cold blooded man with an appetite for gratuitous brutality is positively chilling.
In this situation, the girl, Ofelia, becomes drawn into a parallel world, totally alien to the various domestic and military issues which envelop the camp, but which nevertheless has an impact on those close to her. As events spiral seemingly out of control in both arenas, Ofelia is faced with intractable choices in which principles in one world or the other will be compromised.
While the inventiveness and poetry of the mystical aspect positively transports the viewer into a magical dimension, it has to be said that the 'normal' aspect is as harsh as can be and provides an uncomfortable juxtaposition, a bit like offsetting the Chronicles of Narnia against Apocalypse Now.
At its core this film is about sacrifice. It's about just how much people will endure, what they will go through, what dangers they will face, in whatever world, to stand by their principles and those they love.