Pan's Labyrinth
Movie Review: Pan’s Labyrinth
Stars (Out of 10): 8
One Word Summary: Imaginative
In 1944 Spain, a young girl named Ofelia is forced to live with her mother and her new husband, a vicious and violent general still furiously seeking out rebels. Ofelia lives in her own fantasy world, where fascinating creatures and events mirror that which occurs in the real world around her. She can only go on for so long before her two worlds collide and the real world comes crashing down onto her.
“Pan’s Labyrinth” is very much unlike any other movie you will see. Fascinating from its first moments, it is a fantastically intriguing journey into the mind of a young girl trying to cope with her surroundings. The myth which introduces the basis for her fantasies sets a very nice tone for the film, and Ivana Baquero’s performance as Ofelia is so strong. She rarely lets her fear show through, and very often the audience seems more scared than Ofelia.
The other performances in the film are great, with Sergi López as Ofelia’s stepfather and possibly the most evil villain ever seen on screen. Maribel Verdú, known for her role in 2002’s “Y Tu Mama Tambien” is also great as a employee of Ofelia’s stepfather who serves as more of a mother figure to Ofelia than her own mother.
The film’s scenery is certainly visually pleasing, and there is a nice amount of suspense and fantasy intermixed throughout. The movie’s general ambiguity about Ofelia’s fantasy world works well, and it is fun to try to match up characters and symbols that exist in Ofelia’s world and the real one.
The movie, however, never quite reaches a point of complete greatness, and as intriguing as Ofelia’s world is, it still seems just a bit far-fetched. While that may be the point, the movie is missing that crucial “wow factor” that many other critics seem to have found. The film also contains a surprising amount of graphic, cringe-worthy violence, which, while not completely unnecessary, is very much shocking and revolting.
