Maybe not the best movie you'll ever see,but unique enough to be hard to forget

Rating: 8/10 (22 August 2008)

Set in the waning years of WWII and amidst the long,bloody and somewhat confusing conflict of Civil WAr Spain,Pan's Labryth is a blending of dark,Gothic,serio-religious(think C.S.Lewis or the like)fantasy with the grim historic reality of the region. THe central character,a shy,bookish girl named Ofelia(Ivana Baquero)uncovers a maze and sub-world of fairies and woodland creatures,who cross into her world presenting solutions as well as to problems with her fragmented family: her widowed,pregnant and sick mother(Ariadna Gil),her vile and sadistic stepfather(Sergi Lopez,awesome here!),who happens to be a military commander for the FAscists,the well-intentioned head maid-servant(Maribel Verdu)and the rural farm estate where they are quartered and just also happens to be in the middle of a battle hot zone between rebels and Fascists.
Director,writer and co-producer Guillermo del Toro,more known for his brilliantly crafted Comic book/fantasy/SciFi work(Hellboy and this summer's Hellboy 2 come to mind),is able to craft a bright,unique and largely enthralling story. While I cannot give this a higher mark than I have,due mostly in part to the fact that this film is over-ambitious by that and a half(mostly by amping the emotional conflicts and making the foreshadowing more like overshadowing) and seems to leave gaps in its story(how could Ofelia's mother be so oblivious to her new husband's cruelty? what exactly was the nature of her mother's illness? Also,leaving too much detail and information about the newly created world of the movie vague and without definition). I'll confess that movies entirely done in native language and subtitles also doesn't exactly make an easy digest for me,but as such this movie was still quite watchable.
This film,if memory serves,got A LOT of good pres when it was first released,and managed to come away with its fair share of awards. I managed to miss this completely from the original run,mostly because it stayed mostly in the domain of "artsy" movie houses and away from the mainstream theaters of smaller,non-metropolitan areas(and Topeka,KS fits that description quite well)for much of its first release. I'd always meant to see this,and having finally done so,I'm glad I did. A beautifully-made movie that is able to make its heart and originality work,albeit not flawlessly.