Very tragic, very good

Rating: 9/10 (8 April 2007)

Some people think mistakenly that Pan's Labyrinth is a children's movie, but this is certainly not the one. The very plot is very cruel, dark, gloomy and not so serene. The story takes place in 1944, in General Franco's fascist Spain, where small, but active partisan's detachments still continue their struggle. The main heroine, little girl named Ophelia, comes with her pregnant Mom to the idyllic countryside to see her step-father, fascist Captain, a murderous, ruthless villain, with no human feature left. The story then goes in two parallel lines  one is dark, terrible reality of WWII, with its battles, executions, tortures, partisan actions and fierce cruelty on Nazi's side; another is a deep, mystical fairy tale with Pan, faeries, horrible eyeless monster, magic chalk and a brave girl Ophelia who really wants to help her Mom and her yet unborn son. At times, the film becomes so intensely cruel, so bloody and so mercilessly real that it's hard to watch and not be shocked with how terrible any war can be. And the fairy part is also very dark, frightening and spooky, it is not a sweet bedtime moralist story, nay, it is far too real, too. The never-ending succession of deaths of several main heroes leaves a heavy trace on your heart and the very ending, with its honey-golden hues of color, its openly Christian moral and its sweeter tones is probably the only light spot in the whole deeply tragic and very convincing story. The film is a big winner on the side of Mr. Del Toro as a director, writer and main originator, and the Captain's part, played by Mr. Lopez, is truly a genius of bright, persuading performance of sheer brilliance and great talent. Not a film for kids, but still, this is a must for those whop seem to forget how bad Nazism is and how abominable any war may be.