Pan's Labyrinth (2006)

Pan's Labyrinth is an amazing movie, set in Francisco Franco's Spain, at the closing of World War II. It tells the story of Ofelia, a young girl who's mother is remarried to the brutal fascist, Captain Vidal -- and is pregnant with his son. Ofelia and her mother are not loved by Vidal -- he considers Ofelia a nuisance and her mother only a vessel for his son. While waiting for his son to arrive, Vidal goes about reigning terror on the populace of small town and hunting down Republican rebels. In this horrible world, Ofelia seeks comfort, and finds it surprisingly one night, in the form of a praying mantis that morphs into a fairy. The fairy leads Ofelia to a hidden labyrinth, where she meets a faun, who tells Ofelia that she is Princess Moanna of the underworld, and he has been looking for her to return her home. To prove that she has her essence intact, the faun instructs Ofelia to complete three tasks before the next full moon.

Ofelia sets about to complete her tasks as the world around her tumbles out of control. Ofelia's mother is sick and is getting worse as the pregnancy nears term; Mercedes, the servant who cares for Vidal's household and has a bond with Ofelia, is a spy for the Republican rebels; Vidal trusts no one, and grows more malevolent -- capturing and torturing rebels, killing anyone who gets in his way. Ofelia completes her first task fairly easily by retrieving a golden key from the stomach of a giant frog that lives at the root of a dying tree. She runs into trouble in her second task however, which sends her to the lair of the Pale Man to retrieve a dagger. She is warned by the faun not to eat anything from the Pale Man's table -- but she samples grapes which wakes the Pale Man who quickly gobbles up two of the faeries. Ofelia barely escapes, but the faun, upset at the death of his faeries, declares that Ofelia will never go back to the underworld and leaves her.

Alone, Ofelia bears witness to the death of her mother and the birth of her brother. Vidal grows more nasty, and captures Mercedes and Ofelia trying to flee. Ofelia is locked up, while Mercedes is taken to be tortured. When all hope is lost to Ofelia, the faun reappears to give her a last chance, only if she promises to obey his directives. She is told to steal her baby brother and bring him to the labyrinth in order to return home. She doesn't understand the instructions, but obeys, in hopes of leaving the horror behind. At the labyrinth, Ofelia is told by the faun that innocent blood, that of her baby brother, must be spilt in order for her to return home. She is horrified, and refuses. At this the faun leaves, but Vidal catches up with Ofelia and shoots her after retrieving his son. As Ofelia dies, she is transported to the underworld. There she sees the King and Queen -- the Queen looking just like her dead mother from the world above ground. She is told that she had completed her third task well, and had made the right choice in not sacrificing her brother.

All ends well ... or does it? The movie never confirms whether Ofelia's fantasy world is real, or just a place for she escapes to in her imagination. No one other than Ofelia sees the magical creatures or objects from the underworld, that she comes into contact with. Even in her dying breath, as we see the underworld, and see the Queen, we are left to suppose that maybe it was just her imagination, as the Queen looks like Ofelia's dead mother. The movie tells a sad story, with the only hope to be found in Ofelia's fantasy world. If her fantasy world isn't real ... then the story truly is a bitter pill.

Pan's Labyrinth is a Spanish language film, originally titled El Laberinto del Fauno, that is written and directed by Guillermo del Toro -- the great director of such hits as Hellboy and El Espinazo del Diablo. (In fact, del Toro has commented that El Laberinto del Fauno may in some ways be thought of as a sequel to El Espinazo del Diablo.) The film is dark and melancholy, with the fantasy elements blended seamlessly into reality-setting of the film. While del Toro is a superb storyteller however, in this movie, as with some of his previous films, there is a lack of depth to his main characters. While Ofelia is played extremely well by an eleven-year-old Ivana Baquero, her character isn't developed as well as it could have been. Left unexplored is the little girl who could be so imaginative as to perhaps invent a fantasy world to escape to. Del Toro instead, stayed at a fairytale level with his storytelling, requiring his audience to accept the story as-is -- which is OK, but some depth would have been better. The same could be said of Mercedes and Vidal. The audience isn't given enough depth to either one -- although it's easy to not miss the depth in Vidal, as Sergi López's performance as an evil tyrant was superb.