Susan Granger’s review of “Pan’s Labyrinth” (Picturehouse)
In “Pan’s Labyrinth,” writer/director Guillermo del Toro has created one of the most fascinating, imaginative yet darkly disturbing political fables of our time.
In 1944 during Spanish Civil War, a 10 year-old girl, Ofelia (Ivana Baquero), travels with her delicate, pregnant mother Carmen (Ariadna Gil) to meet her arrogant, terrifying new stepfather, Captain Vidal (Sergi Lopez), in a old mill in the mountains of northern Spain, where Franco’s fascist troops, under his sadistic command, are killing what’s left of the Republican resistance. Ofelia’s only comfort comes from the captain’s housekeeper, Mercedes (Maribel Verdu), who is secretly helping the partisan guerrillas.
Lonely and faced with unspeakable brutality, Ofelia retreats into a fairy story in which the legendary pagan faun Pan (mime Doug Jones) greets her in a hidden underground world beneath a crumbling stone labyrinth in the garden. He tells her she’s a lost princess and assigns her three tasks – challenges that include facing a giant toad to deceiving a pale, faceless ogre with eyes in his hands while ignoring a banquet at which she must not eat or drink anything. Then there’s the mysterious mandrake root she must place in a bowl of milk beneath her sickly mother’s bed and feed with drops of blood. But Ofelia is torn by a need to rebel against authority.
Evoking “Alice in Wonderland” and “The Chronicles of Narnia,” yet stunningly original, this sinister, surreal, strangely grotesque, R-rated fable is filled with magical, sometimes scary special effects and visuals, not unlike tales from the Brothers Grimm. And the acting is captivating. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Pan’s Labyrinth” is an enchanting, wondrous, fantastical 10. Don’t be put off because it’s in Spanish with English subtitles. Like “Il Postino” (“The Postman”), it transcends language.
