Many good aspects, but poorly executed

Rating: 6/10 (6 April 2007)

Pan's Labrinth is among the most overrated movies I've ever seen. I'm starting to think people go to all European movies expecting a high-concept, low-visual incomprehensible well, a stereotypical European film. Then when it turns out to be accessible and engaging they decide it's the best movie ever. It's not. In fact it's kind of a mess.
This film has some good aspects to it, a lot in fact. The acting is universally solid, especially Ivana Baquero as the little girl Ophelia, our heroine. The casting is pretty much perfect all around. The visual effects are absolutely flawless and beautiful. The Faun, who I assume from the dialogue is supposed to be friendly and benevolent, appears about 8 feet tall and seemed rather terrifying to me. Later there's a Resident Evil-esquire monster with removable eyes whom Ophelia provokes which is even scarier. There are a few fairies flitting around at different points in the film which have to be the most convincing fairies I can remember in a movie. There are CG walking stick bugs, a weird, crying baby-root creature, a giant toad and other fantasy elements, all very well portrayed.
The more reality-based side of the film takes place at a modest Spanish army checkpoint during WW2. It's bleakreally bleak. This isn't a complaint, it seems rather appropriate. Again, good costumes, good setsit looks perfect. The C.O. of the checkpoint is Captain Vidal (Sergi López) a completely inhuman, sadistic monster, who is married to Ophelia's mother (Ariadna Gil). She's pregnant and wants the Captain to be present for the birth so she's left the city to come to his station. Why she's bringing her daughter to a war zone I can't say. Assuming there were not family or friends available to take care of Ophelia, she'd probably be better off as an orphan than stuck in this nightmare.
Anyway, the sum total of all these perfectly competent parts is confusing and frustrating. The reality-based scenes feel like something akin to Shindler's List or The Pianist. The fantasy scenes feel like a low-rent Lord of the Rings (a compliment) or a humor-devoid Tim Burton project (would have been a compliment about 8 years ago). Both would likely be fine films by themselves, but feel incompatible and forced together in this one. According to a lot of people, the fantasy aspects supposedly mirror the real-life goings on, although I could not really see many parallels.
Also, the fantasy world doesn't really follow it's own logic at all. We're told early on that Ophelia is actually a princess in the fantasy world. Why?! Sure, fantasy stories are full of princesses but isn't there usually some lineage or magic or some crap that designates them as such? Ophelia says herself that her father is a dead tailor, and she doesn't bother asking her mother about it. Is the entire fantasy aspect of the film all in Ophelia's imagination? I don't think that's what was implied but I think the movie makes more sense that way, although it would also make the already-depressing ending much more depressing.
Having the fantasy sequences interspersed throughout the film feels like it cheapens the truly riveting war plot in the other scenes. We are asked to believe that Ophelia's actions in her little fantasy-world have serious consequences, while very real people are being brutally murdered by her real step-father in the real world. It's kind of hard to be concerned that the faun is a bit upset with Ophelia when there's a very real guy being tortured to death a few yards away.