The Brutal Beauty Of It All

Rating: 10/10 (21 January 2007)

Prepare to be immersed in PAN'S LABYRINTH, the excellent adult fantasy film by Guillermo del Torro. Note the words "adult" here, because this is not something parents should take their little ones to see. Although stunningly beautiful in presentation, it holds back absolutely nothing when focusing on the barbarism of mankind. This includes gunshot wounds to the face, the sawing off of infected limbs, or the torturing of one's enemies.
Set against the backdrop of 1944 Spain, Generalissimo Francisco Franco has his forces set to squash any rebels prepared to inflame Spain into civil war. Into the woodland areas of Spain's countryside is sent Captain Vidal (Sergi Lopez), a commander so selfish and heartless as to kill anyone or anything that gets in his way. This is immediately noticeable when his unhealthy and pregnant wife Carmen (Ariadna Gil) is sent to live with him at this distant wooded post. Vidal cares not that she's ill and shouldn't be traveling in the late stages of pregnancy, but only wants his son born where his father can see him. With Carmen comes her preteen daughter Ofelia (Ivana Baquero), the daughter from a previous marriage in which the father died at war.
The unabashed horrors of war are close to Ofelia and her mother's new war post home. Ofelia, feeling helpless and frightened, goes off into the woods and discovers strange runes and eventually an old stone labyrinth of indeterminate age. Soon a faun appears and discloses some interesting information to Ofelia: she is the princess of a lost underworld, a world of immortals where her father-king awaits her return. But in order to find her way back to this wonderland, she must accomplish three tasks in short order.
But as the battle with the independent fighters draws near to the human world, the tasks set for her in the magical become nearly insurmountable ...and more dangerous.
The question as to if Ofelia is truly a princess or not is completely left up to the viewer to decide. Whether all of the fantastical elements in the film were solely a part of Ofelia's imagination  and a way to get away from the horrors of the war  or were real are never given over to the audience. A definite high point for the movie.
Pulling from Greek mythology, the faun (played by Doug Jones) is Pan, a half-goat, half-human, better known as a caretaker of woods and shepherds, and also a bit of a trickster. When we first meet Pan we're told that fauns "aren't to be trusted." Usually a wise thing when dealing with the unknown. Added to this problem is the dark nature in which we find Pan. He's in a tomb-like structure, full of shadows and decay. It's also noteworthy to mention that Doug Jones plays a double-role in the movie, as both Pan and Pale Man, a freakishly dangerous creature with eyes in its hands.
Spinning the audience between the brutality of war and the beautifully surreal world Ofelia explores, the merging of the two comes to a close in a most satisfying way. But it's an adult way, not a fairytale one. Pan's Labyrinth isn't designed to be a feel-good flick. It's a historical recounting of the Spanish Civil War and what one young girl's reaction to it might've been.
The film is a foreign language flick (Spanish) and subtitled, forcing those of us who aren't Spanish speakers to pull our eyes away from the sumptuous sets and down to the bottom of the screen; a necessity but still bothersome considering the extreme high quality of the sets.
Young Ivana Baquero as Ofelia deserves all the award nods she's sure to get. Her performance was truly outstanding, making movie watchers cringe whenever she's in danger and applaud when she succeeds with one of her tasks. Her tough choices are felt more than seen, making us care about her all the more as she wanders into unfamiliar and potentially dangerous terrain. That she has to make tough decisions for such a little girl will cause many-a-viewer to reach for the Kleenex box.
Because of these terrible decisions forced upon Ofelia, the audience is left to ponder one important thought: Caught between the stark beauty of a (possible) magical world and the brutality of human warmongering, which would you choose?