Arresting and Beautiful.

Rating: Null/10 (21 January 2009)

Are you the kind of moviegoer who just doesn't cotton to subtitled films? If you're like me, you have enough trouble following the spoken words and the images on the screen without also having to wrestle with text. For me, it's especially tough when the movie depends strongly on dialog for its success. So for the most part, I avoid subtitled movies. I'll watch 'em, but it darn well better be an awesome film.
Pan's Labyrinth is an awesome film, and I mean that it's both awe-inspiring and excellent. The movie is full of lush imagery that at times cascades gently over the viewer, lulling them into acquiescence, and other times jarring him into reality. It's simultaneously beautiful, arresting, dreamy, and terrifying.
The story centers on young Ofelia (Ivana Baquero), a bookish sort who's been uprooted by her mother Carmen (Ariadna Gil) to live with her new stepfather Capitan Vidal (Sergi Lopez) in a remote military stronghold in Spain during World War II. The Franco government has just assumed control, and Vidal's troops are there to fight rebels stationed in the woods, all while rationing food to the needy villagers around them.
As if this situation weren't unnerving enough, Ofelia's mother is very late in her pregnancy (by the Capitan, of course), and the pregnancy isn't proceeding smoothly; in an ominous sign, the caravan ferrying Ofelia and Carmen to the castle has to stop when Carmen becomes ill.
On top of dealing with these very real problems, Ofelia finds herself drawn to a huge labyrinth located in the garden of the vast estate. The housekeeper, Mercedes, warns the imaginative Ofelia not to enter the labyrinth, because its myriad turns would be very dangerous indeed for her young charge.
In the middle of her first night in the castle, Ofelia awakes and finds herself drawn to a pit near the labyrinth. Descending its narrow stone stairs, she finds Pan (Faun in Spanish), a servant of the Lord of the Underworld. Pan tells Ofelia that she is actually the Princess of the Underworld, and that she must perform three tasks so that she can leave her human body and return to be by the side of her father.
To describe these three tasks would be to give away a bit too much, but suffice to say that they aren't as simple as saying one's prayers or sneaking a loaf of bread away from the kitchen. But Ofelia does choose to complete them; she decides that given the evil of her malignant, torturing stepfather (a despot in training during the Fascist regime), she would rather follow her limitless imagination.
Meanwhile, a parallel storyline involves the rebels, who have a source inside the castle: Mercedes. Vidal is determined to root all of the rebels out of the woods and exterminate them all, and they are equally determined to overthrow him and return freedom to the masses. As well, Carmen's pregnancy becomes even more difficult, and it is only a matter of time before the three threads come to a head.
Perhaps the most striking of the many visual desserts in the movie is that of the Pale Man, one of the demons that Ofelia must encounter during her travails. The scene is a banquet table with a lush array of foods and drinks. At one end sits a creature. The creature is tall, but humanoid in shape. It has long arms and arrow-sharp fingers with nails resembling talons. It is hairless and virtually skinless as well, and it has no eyes. Its mouth is a gaping maw, bereft of lips; a cold, stark, ugly beast that immediately fills one with horror and dread. On the table before the creature are two eyeballs; when the Pale Man is aroused, it grasps the eyeballs with its gnarled hands and slaps them into the palms, then holds the arms at head's height in order to see its prey.
Guillermo del Toro's film is highly imaginative, almost decadent in its lushness, evocative in both beauty and ugliness, in Ofelia's innocence, Carmen's and Mercedes' love, and Vidal's demonic cruelty. Vidal is a terrible sight, a by-the-book murderous fiend who will stop at nothing to completely eradicate everyone who opposes him, including the weak and the infirm. Lopez's performance is gut-wrenching, despicable, and sincere. The precocious Baquero, as Ofelia, is a perfect foil to the haunting Vidal, combining her natural, wide-eyed naivete and curiosity with resolve, intelligence, and self-sufficiency.
This original film is Mexico's 2007 entry as Best Film in a Foreign Language for the Academy Awards, and it really should win. Had it been in English, I have no doubt it would have been considered for Best Picture. It really is that good; don't let your aversion to subtitles prevent you from seeing this one.