Pan’s Labyrinth (2006)

Side note: This is a spanish spoken film, which I had to view with english subtitles. The original title of the film is "El Laberinto del fauno" 

                Pan’s Labyrinth, written and directed by Guillermo Del Toro, is a Spanish-spoken dark fantasy film about a young girl named Ofelia who encounters a faun which claims that Ofelia is a princess from another realm and must complete three tasks to prove herself.  During her quest to fulfill these tasks, Ofelia encounters various mystical creatures which guard certain relics that she must retrieve and return to the faun.  Ofelia completes the first task with ease and is given her second task from the faun, this time with strict warnings.  Ofelia fails to heed these warnings but still manages to complete the task, much to the faun’s disappointment.  After some time, the faun returns and forgives Ofelia for her mistake and gives her the third task, which is to retrieve her newborn brother and bring him to the labyrinth.  Ofelia retrieves her brother from her crazed step-father who chases after her to the labyrinth.  There the faun tells Ofelia to hand over her baby brother so he can use some of his blood to open the portal to their realm.  Ofelia refuses and the faun disappears right as her crazed step-father arrives and shoots her dead.  Ofelia’s blood spills into the labyrinth and she wakes up in a mystical castle where she is appointed princess.

                The cinematography, production design, and theme all work together harmoniously to create a dark yet magical film.  The element that contributes most to make this such a great film is without a doubt the flawless production design.  Special effects, makeup, and CGI all contribute to making the mystical creatures in Pan’s Labyrinth come to life.  One design choice I was particularly happy about was the choice to make the two main creatures, the faun and the Pale Man, live actors with heavy makeup and costumes rather than creating them purely with CGI.  The excellent set design and lighting of the actual labyrinth creates a world within a world which is hard to describe in words.  The unique storyline of this film also sets it apart from the mass of stereotypical fairy tale movies.  Unlike typical fairy tale movies, the characters of Pan’s Labyrinth actually seem like real people facing real problems.  This heavy focus on realism sprinkled with Ofelia’s fairy tale encounters can induce quite the noggin’ scratcher on whether Ofelia is actually interacting with these mystical creatures as we see or if she is actually imagining them.  This realization was the one thing above all else that made me realize that this was an excellent movie, after it was over it made me think, and rethink, to the point that I wanted to watch it again.