A masterpiece in every aspect

Rating: 10/10 (27 November 2006)

Up to this film, there was quite good enough evidence about the talent of Guillermo Del Toro as a director. I'm pretty sure that he will keep on providing good work. But however, after seeing this movie, there's one new thing else that i'm sure of... He will never be able to create such a beautiful movie again. This is surely a masterpiece; and this is his masterpiece that will ruin the rest of his life with a huge cast of shadow. Just like the Brazil did and actually -still doing- on Gilliam.
El Laberinto del Fauno is a very brutal and violent fairy tale that is carefully and masterfully scripted and directed, both by Del Toro. It can easily be compared to last year's Chronicles of Narnia, but unlike Narnia, this movie is very clear and consistent on its subject material. While Narnia departs from its initial offer, moving towards an exaggerated symbolism, therefore towards a childish fairy tale since the symbolism was far out of range to be meaningful, El Laberinto Del Fauno never looses its ties with reality. What this movie offers is a very hard to find combination of reality and disillusion, an impossible to find mixture of violence/brutality and humanism, and a one in a million possibility of innocence and guiltiness together, all eating from same can. These kind of combinations or pairs can only exist in one place: in a singular brain. And just like that, the movie chooses a perfect atmosphere for delivering the story: Civil War. A civil war (in this movie: Spanish civil war in fact) is like a self-arguing brain. The harshness of reality and the dosage of brutality is horribly high, so that we can easily and -willingly cross over to disillusion with Ophelia. So; This Labyrinth, may be a very valuable opening to your-our forgotten childhood.
This is a perfect movie, the perfect fiction movie (that i haven't seen for years) and obviously the best 2006 movie. Everyone should see this fairy tale, but not the children, because of the brutality fact. There will be sure enough time for it.