Genre: Drama/Fantasy/Thriller

Director: Guillermo del Toro

Certificate: Pan's Labyrinth  was rated 16 by the Irish Film Censor's Office (www.ifco.ie) i.e. suitable for those of 16 years of age or upwards.

"The stars of midnight shall be dear

To her ; and she shall lean her ear

In many a secret place.." 

William Wordsworth's beautiful and tragic homage to the mystery of childhood - to the innocence and imagination of Lucy Gray - is very much imbued with the same pervasive spirit present in Guillermo del Toro's stunning Pan's Labyrinth.

Set in the ragged aftermath of the Spanish Civil War, it tells the story of Ofelia - a quiet little girl with an insatiable passion for reading and storytelling, a deep well of sensitive creativity - who finds herself thrown into two starkly contrasting environments. Ofelia's widowed mother Carmen - ill, defeated and heavily pregnant - retreats with her young daughter to the rural garrison home of her new husband, the cold and callous General Vidal.  This creation of Franco's spiritual wasteland is not of the greedy, prototype fascists we saw in this movie's companion piece The Devil's Backbone.  Oh no, Vidal is a fully formed oppressive consciousness, buoyed and justified by Franco's triumph.  A scary, vile, inhumane antagonist bent on the annihilation of any resistance to, or questioning of, his ultimate authority - be it through his own domestic tyranny or in his obsessive hatred towards the small pockets of revolutionaries still active in the adjoining woods.

Discovering a mysterious labyrinth next to her new home, Ofelia encounters the fantastical Pan, a faun like creature who reveals to her that she is indeed Very special and must perform certain extraordinary tasks to truly realise her immortal potential.  These fantasy sequences in the movie are really super.  Del Toro's startling fusions of style and genre make for truly captivating viewing.  At times pulsing with very real tension, repulsion and thrills - at times oozing with magic and charm, it never once loses the run of itself!  What is immediately striking about it all is his amazing ability to intercut these parallel realities with competence and make the whole switch quite fluid and convincing (a major failing many placed on M. Night Shyamalan's Lady In The Water).

Make no mistake - despite its rather misleadingly "Nice" title, the "Real" sequences in this film are laced with brutality and hardship.  There are graphically violent scenes of battle, torture and pain.  Yet the underlying message of it all is, I believe, the tragic paradox that creativity and imagination are often at their most potent when beaten down by the very real horrors of humanity - that in some strange scheme of things, it is our ability to create through art and imagination that brings about the ultimate triumph of the human spirit - though not without huge cost.

As Samwise rightly intones in The Two Towers ... "It's like in the great stories.. / ... the ones that mattered... / ... They kept going. Because they were holding on to something.."

Ivana Baquero is simply spellbinding as young Ofelia, and Sergio López's awesome turn as the horrible Vidal is one of the most effective acting performances in cinema history. Look out also for a brilliant performance from Maribel Verdú, playing Vidal's compromised housekeeper Mercedes - covert ally of the resistance movement.

Perfection.

Reviewed by Trooper, Premier Movie Reviews 2007

Ariadna Gil

Ivana Baquero

Sergi López

Maribel Verdú

Doug Jones

Álex Angulo

Manolo Solo

César Vea

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