dark, twisted, sublime, wondrous and excellently made. This is a triumph of modern cinema.

Rating: 9/10 (25 November 2006)

All your emotions will be thoroughly tested in Guillermo Del Toro's grim fairy tale. A masterful fable that alternates between uber-gritty realism and dark, twisted fantasy with such a sublime slickness, it is near startling. A young woman by the name of Ofelia has just moved to rural Spain, with her sick, pregnant mother where her new husband, the slimy fascist Captain Vidal is currently holding his troops. Constantly under fire from partisan soldiers in the wooden hills, Vidal must attend to his wife whilst fighting for Franco's regime. Ofelia, meanwhile, is caught in a struggle to escape the grim realities of war-torn Spain. She is in love with stories, notably her fairy tales. One night, she is visited by a fairy, which brings her to the "labyrinth". A secret maze, run by a tall, tree-like faun. He calls her "your highness" and a princess, and gives her tasks to complete for him, each one adding a new page to her empty fairytale book.
Whilst from a distance Pan's Labyrinth may seem like a children's grim fairytale, it is anything but for children. The majority of the movie is far more concerned with Captain Vidal and his horrendous callousness to both his wife, his people and to the Spanish resistance. In a film that features a skinless monster with eyes in his hands, slowly creeping towards Ofelia as she avoids becoming the rancidly gravel-voiced demon's next dinner meal, Vidal is by far the most putrid thing on screen. A man who fears dreamers and thinkers, one of who just happens to be the innocent Ofelia. Her mother doesn't understand, nor does the Captain. It seems the only people she can turn to are the shrewd resistance-sympathising maid Mercedes (Maribel Verdu, of Y Tu Mama Tambien fame) and the faun himself.
Do not be fooled. This is a movie about children, but not for children. There are at least two torture sequences, which despite being purely simplistic are every bit as masochistic as Saw or Casino Royale. The themes dealt with in Pan's Labyrinth are simple, yet adult ones, managing to mesh the contrast between fantasy and reality to startling effect. Every bit as wonderful and awe-inspiring as it is grim and melancholic  you will be hard-pressed to find a better film this year.