A fine film but it wasn't the Spanish Civil war

Rating: 8/10 (6 March 2007)

I finally caught up with El Laberinto del Fauno at a Barcelona cinema last night. A very fine work, successfully blending fantasy with brutal reality. In a nearby coffee house afterwards, you could tell who had just seen the film - they were were all waving their hands around in 'Pale Man' mode.
I won't summarize the plot - plenty of others have done that - other than to say that some commentators are mistaken in thinking it was set in the Spanish Civil War.
By 1944, when the film was set, the civil war had been over for five years, Franco's right-wing forces having succeeded in overthrowing Spain's democratic government.
The film's background was the armed resistance that sprang up around the country as Franco's cruel regime cracked down with murderous savagery (well summed up in the film) on any form of dissent. Tens of thousands of Spaniards were tortured and murdered and the resistance continued until democracy was finally restored in late 1970s.