Living with her tyrannical stepfather in a new home with her pregnant mother, 10-year-old Ofelia feels alone until she explores a decaying labyrinth guarded by a mysterious faun who claims to know her destiny. If she wishes to return to her real father, Ofelia must complete three terrifying tasks.
Beautiful movie from Guillermo del Toro and while I did like the movie and its World War II-era plot, I can't say I was totally in love, feeling this was more style over substance, though the acting from the young Ivana Baquero was really good. 4.0/5
I think this is my favourite film, as yet, from Guillermo del Toro - and it gets better the more you watch it. Set against at backdrop of a Spain still trying to recover from it's civil war, the young "Ofelia" and her pregnant mother "Carmen" are sent to live with the rather brutish "Capt. Vidal". Now he is a singularly nasty piece of work and the girl longs to meet her own real father. It's in the middle of the night that "Ofelia" encounters a sprite who offers her some hope. It knows of a faun in the middle of a maze who might be able to help, and so they set of in search of this ostensibly sagely and benign creature. The meeting offers her far more than a glimmer, she need only complete three tasks and will find herself taking up her inh...
Pan's Labyrinth is a movie that really gets you thinking. You can see it two ways: either it's a dark fairy tale about a princess escaping to a magical world, or it's about a little girl using her imagination to deal with some really tough stuff.
What's cool is that the movie gives you reasons to believe both things. Like, Ofelia draws a door with chalk and actually walks through it? And the root she puts under her mom's bed seems to help? That makes you wonder if it's all real. But then, all the monsters and the things she has to do? They seem to match up perfectly with the problems she's facing in real life. Plus, the bad guy can't even see the Faun.
The best part is, the movie doesn't tell you which one is right. You want to believ...