A Wonderous and Bittersweet thrill ride

Rating: 10/10 (6 May 2019)

In the events of this linear yet thrilling story, we follow the adventure of a young girl, Ophelia, who lives in a violent time period within Spain. As she goes through the movie starting off as rather innocent and naïve, she progressively becomes more mature, yet never truly gives up that innocent nature of hers. Whether it be in the face of her sadistic and cold Stepfather, also Captain of a regime of fascist soldiers, Vidal, or in the face of mystical and terrifying creatures in the cases of the elusive Faun and the horrific Pale Man she keeps her light alive. Though Ophelia is the focus of this story, it is important to note that the story also switches perspectives to Captain Vidal for a majority of the story, and later to characters on the opposing side of his forces; however his point of view as opposed to Ophelia's is what I believe to be the focus of the story.
When the film seeks to evoke a particular reaction from viewers it gets that desired reaction. Going by two particular instances we can see excellent camera work and dramatic audio cues making up these intense scenes. The first example of this is the grueling scene in which Captain Vidal shows off some of his sadistic tendencies, in a shot where before he executes the man before him the camera focuses between the two men, before the audio cues several "BANG!" Like sound effects to the timing of each bash Vidal brings upon the man's face with his night stick ending with a cut away to let the overwhelming display of violence set in. The second example of the excellent camera and sound work. is right before what the viewer expects to be a chase scene, yet starts out with Ophelia disobediently eating fruit she was told not to as a pale creature sits and sleeps at the end f the table behind her; much like the Vidal scene this one makes a point of making the unsettling creature stir every time she consumes a fruit, until t awakens and the shot focuses on its hands as it is revealed that the creature's eyes are in fact embedded in its hands and as the camera tracks them it brings them up to its face to see Ophelia. and the shot focuses back on her reaction to turning around and viewing the monstrosity in utter horror.
A final point to touch upon is how each of the four mentioned characters are costumed and made up, the two humans and the two creatures. As mentioned before I believe that Ophelia and Vidal's appearances are directly infinitive of their personalities and backgrounds, and serve to mirror each other; Vidal is the cold and battle hardened soldier behind his garb and his darkened sunglasses to show the darkness in his gaze, while Ophelia is the innocent and childlike little girl dressed youthfully with nothing covering the brightness of her eyes. The two creatures are opposite in design not by characterization in this case the Pale Man is not really depicted as a character, it is just a monster meant to evoke fear. The Faun is meant to be a devil esq depiction of its peaceful natural counterpart with elements of a tree incorporated into his design, he moves unnaturally and disturbingly making him a difficult character to trust; the Pale Man is meant to be unsettling all around, with his saggy and disgusting skin, long slender hands, and especially his "Hand eyes" which allow him to have a screen presence all to his own as he stalks Ophelia shambling his way down the hall.
Though this review has admittedly come late and doesn't quite touch upon every intricate and wondrous detail, I would highly recommend it to any fan of the film media. It has aged so well in fact, I believe it will continue to be great and hopefully untouched in the decades to come.