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Pan's Labyrinth February 13, 2007 |
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A companion piece to director Guillermo del Toro’s 2001 period ghost drama “The Devil’s Backbone”, but not a direct sequel of any sorts, “Pan’s Labyrinth” tells an immense tale of innocence, war, and rebellion by seeing it through the eyes, and imagination of a 10-year-old girl, who escapes (or embraces) the horrors of the Spanish Civil War by creating a fairy tale in her mind that is just as scary, and dangerous as the all too real war around her. While living in the hills of Northern Spain with her brutal step-father, Captain Vidal (Sergi Lopez), young Ofelia (Ivana Baquero) is told by a faun named Pan (Doug Jones) that she is the lost Princess Maonna of the Underworld, and that to achieve immortality and be reunited with her parents she must perform three tasks, each one more dangerous than the last, including smiting a hideous gigantic toad, and confronting the murderous Pale Man. The blend of the fantasy elements with the war elements, as the fascist Vidal smokes out a band of rebels in the hills, is seamless, and del Toro perfectly presents Ofelia’s struggles with her tyrannical step-father as a catalyst for the wonders, and dangers of Pan’s challenges. In the purest sense, this masterpiece belongs to the realm of magic realism, where the vivid imagination of childhood is no match, yet a strong competing hindrance, for the realities of life in and around death and war. by Adam Suraf
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