From the imagination of Guillermo Del Toro

Rating: 8/10 (14 June 2007)

Guillermo Del Toro is Mexican. I clarify this because I know it, and I assured the fact to a friend who watched "El laberinto del fauno" with me; but when the movie began with a Spanish accent, I doubted. And it's because Del Toro is obsessed with the Spanish Civil War, and we the adventures of little children in the midst of this important historical event (watch "El espinazo del Diablo"); but all of this comes from his obsession with fairy tales, those that are only for children.
But look at what he does: he invents the most infantile story of all, in a film that's everything except infantile. This is a double-edged sword; in fact, Del Toro is a double-edged sword himself. His obsessions come from when he was little, when he imagined creatures and monsters as part of his daily reality. He also has a photographic memory; these are all things that can as positive as they can be negative, and it is evidenced in his way of making cinema.
The man knows a lot about cinema: he has experimented with cameras since his teenage years; he studied make-upThis plays against him too, mostly in "El laberinto del fauno", which is one of the most technically perfect movies I've seen in my whole life. The impressive sound edition becomes present from the first minute; the images are exaggeratedly beautiful; the music is perfect, but only because it is directly connected to the plot.
All the particularities that can be found in this film's characters come straight from Del Toro; who wrote the screenplay of his fable himself. It is an enchanting script that commences with the telling of a simple fairy tale, revealing a main fact of the story immediately. We should remember something so fundamental, but this immersing quality of the script makes us forget. And it's not a complex screenplay, because it has its predictable points; but as we get lost in a world where reality and fantasy become one, we stop caring.
Reality can be so strong that sometimes we choose to escape. The images of this film are very strong, therefore the main character, Ivana, finds a magical world that keeps her constantly away from what's happening around her. And the point is not to ask ourselves if this 'magical world' is real, trying to analyze every moment to put them together and see if they fit. That's unimportant, because in this story there's nothing to resolveBut there's a lot to understand.
And I think that to really understand "El laberinto del fauno", you hace to understand its director. Del Toro's ability to bring incredible creations (from the same 'faun' to a monster with eyes in its hands) to us reflects the power of his imagination; maybe his only neutral quality. I think I'll never completely understand Del Toro, but I assume that his imagination is what makes him attractive to the people who work with him; and consequently makes them follow him anywhere.
In this aspect, "El laberinto del fauno" stands close to "Letters From Iwo Jima"; because just like Clint Eastwood in that film, Del Toro is an example of how crucial and predominant is the influence of the director in a cinematographic piece. "El laberinto" is excessively long, but nobody cared; the actors become insignificant, as if the characters had taken over them (and not the other way round as it should be)Everything seems to be part of a bigger unit: Guillermo Del Toro's vision.