One messed up kid

Rating: 10/10 (14 May 2014)

The cover of this movie state the dubious words: "from the director of Blade II and Hellboy" and "Best film of the year - Stephen King". When someone asks me about my favourite movies, I tend to mention these words as well when "promoting" this flick. I actually just read a review on this movie which said that people tend to overrate it because they are pleasantly surprised. It is not strange that people are pleasantly surprised considering the text on the cover, but that does not diminish the fact that this is a great movie.
It is the story of the Spanish Ofelia, whose mother "is sick with child". They move to the mountains in the North of Spain, where the new husband of the mother, "capitán" Vidal, is brutally hunting down communist guerrillas or partisans. Confronted with the awful realities of post-civil war Spain, Ofelia flees in a grim fantasy world inspired by her fairy-tale books.
I am one of those presumed idiots who rates this a 10/10, for the following reasons. The underlying story portrays the influence of the cruel circumstances of war and the feeling of abandonment and change on a child's psyche, where the imagination functions as both a repellent and processor of reality. The music is complementing this story, with an eerie and dramatic variation to the recognizable theme. The parts where fantasy does not play a role are strong as well, with an oppressive atmosphere and some intense scenes of violence that make it very clear why one would like to flee reality. The fact that it is all in original Spanish, with it's raw and harsh sounds, contributes to the overall feeling of this movie.
The only bad thing about this movie is the part near the end, where Ofelia looks at her shoes. It made me think of Pinocchio.