Subtitle alert! This film is in Spanish. If you are one of the plebs who's too lazy to follow along with a film that's not in your native language, please move along now. I hear "Epic Movie" is playing.
I'm becoming quite the fan of director Guillermo del Toro.
He made a clunker like "Mimic" suck less than it should have, made "Blade 2" a bit odd but still pretty good, and I liked "Hellboy" quite a bit. Now "Pan's Labyrinth" shows he can do serious work.
A bittersweet faerie tale, this is part historical drama, part family melodrama, and part fantasy. That's a tough balance, but del Toro pulls it off nicely.
The child actress playing Ofelia has to carry the movie -- if she doesn't work, none of it does. And she moves from heavy drama to clinging to her mother's skirts to being the princess that saves the world with ease. Even more impressive are the actors that play the Captain and Mercedes, the housekeeper/revolutionary. The Captain is both horrific and sympathetic, and Mercedes gives the film an emotional center.
And it's surprising how well the fantasy elements fit into a tale of the Spanish Civil War -- it's a juxtaposition I would have never thought of. The set design, costumes and effects are spectacular -- and I'm pleased that the faeries were much more nature spirit than "poofy pretty things in pink glitter."
Moving, marvelous and very intense and violent -- as faerie tales should be.
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