Guillermo Del Toro’s Spanish-language masterpiece “Pan’s Labyrinth” is a magical account of a young girl’s life during the Spanish Civil War. With her step-father as a fear-striking figure in her life, young Ophelia turns to her imagination for comfort in a place where violence and fear is always around the corner. Her life is filled with surreal creatures appearing to her in her dreams, and in what we assume are hallucinations or “imaginary friends” or fairies, with some of them being more sinister than others. However the real villain in the plot remains her step-father, an army commander. His marriage to her kind and loving but sickly mother is a constant source of torment for Ophelia, and she escapes through these visions of hers.
The imagery in “Pan’s Labyrinth” is breathtaking and the plot is heartbreaking, but I watched on and so should you.