Powerful, emotional, terrifying. Brilliant.

Rating: 10/10 (25 November 2006)

To start with, can I just say quite simply: this is the best film I have ever seen. Ever. I had read many great reviews (including one from Mark Kermode who said it was the best film of the year) and so my expectations of it were through the roof. I imagined it could only disappoint. Pan's Labirynth is so extraordinary, I can barley begin to describe it in any way that would do it justice.
Set in civil war Spain, Ofelia (brilliantly played by Ivana Baquero) meets a Faun who promises to take her to a mystical land, where she can live immortally, if she can complete three tasks. The fantastical aspects of the film are interwoven with the real world, where the brutal captain Vidal, recently married to Ofelia's mother, takes the fight to left-wing rebels.
Pan's Labirynth is brutal and realistic and certainly one of the most violent films I've seen in a while, and I found my self looking away numerous times despite the many horror movies I've seen in the before. The violence is all in context and never feels exploitative or out of place. The film has an emotional power which I have never seen so well achieved in any film before, to such an extent I found myself in tears, several times. There are scarier elements to, such as 'the Pale Man' which is uncannily terrifying. Equally in the real word Sergi Lopez is a terrifying presence, particularly in the scenes of torture which he executes.
I never thought a film would displace Apocalypse Now as my number one, but this has spectacularly. Honestly, if you only see one film this year, see this. It is truly life-changing.