Pan's Labyrinth

The film? it was amazing... Beautiful cinematography... simple yet gripping story and a nicely en-meshed parallel 'fairy tale' adventure to complement it.

The story was set in Spain, during the civil war in 1944. A little girl Ofelia starts her new life in an army camp with her stepfather, a sadistic and no-nonsense military captain, and pregnant mother. She dreams about being in another world, a world of magic, where she is a princess who needs to return to her kingdom where her father and her people are longing for her return. I thought it was a nice illustration about how fantasies and beliefs are so important in our lives... Something to hold on to when life around one falls apart. I felt that the part where Carmen (pregnant mother) threw away the Mandrake root to show Ofelia (the little girl) that 'magic' will not make her well, and that once she threw it in the fire, she started having labour pains... made that point quite clear.

But I guess Del Toro (director) made a point to show us that fairy tales may only be a temporary analgesic, but they do not solve our problems in the real world. Ofelia gets shot dead by her stepfather... and 'supposedly' her soul returns to her fairy tale kingdom.

I thought the saddest person in the show was Ofelia's step father... Captain Viddal. Captain Viddal's father was a general who died gloriously on the battle-field. His father smashed his pocket-watch just before he died so his son will know the time of his death. It seemed like that had stuck with him all his life. His harsh and cruel methods to quell the resistance seemed to betray his desire to become like his father. He wanted to be like his father, a person he probably did not know very well, but yearned to be close to. He wanted to be a good military officer who accomplished the work his government asked him to do. And as the good doctor in the show said... he went about his life without thinking about what he was doing.

(Pan... english translation of the Faun... the creature who guides Ofelia on her adventures to return to her kingdom)