An Audacious, Magical and Eye-Wincing Epic of Emotional Power

Rating: 9/10 (25 January 2007)

The remnants of the bloody, three-year Spanish Civil War were still deeply felt in the throes of WWII, and Mexican filmmaker Guillermo del Toro captures the virulence of the country's relentlessly oppressive state in no uncertain terms in his beautifully realized 2006 film, a powerful combination of vivid history and fantastical allegory. Be forewarned that this movie is not for the faint-hearted, as it contains some of the most grisly images I have seen on screen. However, they are truly essential to the story that del Toro unfolds with emotional precision since they reflect and echo the brutalizing violence during that time when Franco's armies were still eliminating what was left of the Republican rebels in hiding five years after the war's end.
Set around D-Day in 1944 as the Allies are turning the tide of the war, the film takes place in a remote area of northern Spain where ten-year old Ofelia and her pregnant mother Carmen come to live with her new stepfather, Captain Vidal, the deceptive and sadistic commander of the local outpost. Steeped in her fantasy books, Ofelia is a child often lost in her imagination, and she is drawn to a mysterious stone labyrinth on the property. It is here that she meets the Pale Man, a pedantic faun who assigns three onerous tasks which she must complete by the next full moon in order for her to realize her throne as a princess of the underworld. While this sounds like the trappings of an optimistic fairy tale in "The Wizard of Oz" mode, it turns out to be far from it, as del Toro creates a purely Gothic world of eye-wincing creatures and actions not far removed from those found in mainstream American sci-fi horror movies. The genuine power of the film comes from the way he juxtaposes this fanciful, scarifying world with the persecution of the resistance fighters and the absolutist, ego-driven domain Vidal has established at the outpost. Each distinctive piece of the movie brings resonance to the other, all the way to the climactic point where they collide in an inevitable way at the end.
Looking a bit like the pre-adolescent Natalie Portman, Ivana Baquero brings a plaintive, yearning quality to Ofelia that is thankfully free of precociousness. As Vidal, Sergi López effectively brings steely resolve to his role while hinting at the paternal approval his character never received. Maribel Verdú, memorable as the older woman in Alfonso Cuarón's "Y tu mamá también", brings coiled power to the pivotal role of Vidal's house servant Mercedes. Also solid are Ariadna Gil as the frail Carmen who acquiesced to Vidal's need for a son, Álex Angulo as a kindly doctor, and Doug Jones as the special effects-laden Pale Man. Special kudos need to go to Guillermo Navarro's striking, moody cinematography; Eugenio Caballero's imaginative set designs; and the special visual and sound effects crucial in creating such an otherworldly mood. Unafraid to show scenes of unrelenting horror, Del Toro has created what ultimately is a magical film so audacious in execution that it defies description. Along with Cuarón's "Children of Men" and Alejandro González Iñárritu's "Babel", this film shows a true renaissance among Mexican filmmakers on a global landscape.