Movie review: Pan's Labyrinth

On the surface, the distribution company for Guillarmo Del Toro’s new masterpiece, Pan’s Labyrinth did a fairly poor job of marketing exactly what the film was in its commercial spots.

On the surface, the distribution company for Guillarmo Del Toro’s new masterpiece, Pan’s Labyrinthdid a fairly poor job of marketing exactly what the film was in itscommercial spots. Not to say that their vision of a dystopian fairytale made for adults is technically wrong, but they completelyneglected to mention the entire plot of the film, that of the ravagesof World War II and the people stuck in the middle.

Pan’s Labyrinth is a beautiful movie inevery sense of the word. From the opening scene to the very final shot,it’s crafted with the careful precision of a man working from memory,as if the film had played in his head one million times before. Theimagery is so carefully constructed and forcefully engaged that thereisn’t a single scene in which you cannot find and extract some preciousnugget.

As I mentioned it is set in the fascist Spain ofWorld War II, 1944 to be exact. Starting only days before Allied Forcesinvaded the shores of France, and carrying through to some undeterminedtime afterward, this is not only a tale of little Ofelia and her tripsto the Faun’s labyrinth, but of a world trying to cope with itsordeals, of a ravaged man trying to define himself and the evils hecommits to do so, and of how exactly Ofelia fits into such a violent,destructive society.

Her mother, recently remarried to the Captain of alocal garrison in charge of feeding and caring for local villagers ispregnant with her little brother. On their trip to the garrison to meetup with the Captain, Ofelia runs across a ruin in the woods and arather large bug which she names as a fairy.

The bug returns to her multiple times and leads herto the labyrinth, buried deep within the woods near the garrison. Thefaun greets her as the long lost daughter of the King of the Underworldand sets to her three tasks to complete before she can return to him.

As she attempts to complete her tasks, the worldaround her dives further and further into chaos as rebels in the woodsinfiltrate the garrison through their spies within and the captaindisplays just how ruthless he can be. Ofelia’s mother is incredibly illin her pregnancy and all the while a war rages on. Crossing between thehorrors of her reality and the responsibilities pushed upon her by thefantasy, Ofelia is stuck in between, and yet never once is she anythingbut stalwart. She never shies from her calling and oddly enough isnever scared, considering what she is faced with.

What truly makes this film work is Del Toro’sdedication to the true story here. While his film is at its heart atale of coping with loss and grief, and yet staying true to those pureideals of human decency, something only a child can display so easily,the crux of the film is much more. He doesn’t flood the screen withimages of his fantastic vision. Instead, he slowly blurs that line,showing a film nearly entirely composed of violent imagery, bloodydiscourse, and the descent of each of its characters into a grief thatdoes not fit in with the image of a fairy tale.

Pan’s Labyrinth is a truly magical filmbecause it still manages to stand ascend beyond such dark themes and inits last shot, after such horrible occurrences, emit a sense ofcompletion and joy that one wouldn’t expect from such a film. DelToro’s vision in this film is at times beautiful and disturbing, but itnever falters, and each scene speaks as a painting of such masterlyaffection that it’s hard to imagine a better film released in the lastyear.

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