Pan's Labyrinth

I can't remember the last time I was as excited about seeing a movie as I was sitting there waiting for "Pan's Labyrinth" to start.

Sure, I remember my parents indulging my brother and I by taking time out of their California vacation to let us queue up for blocks to see "The Empire Strikes Back," but I mean as a somewhat-fully functioning adult. Ever since I heard about it way back before Cannes, this movie has been all alone atop my must-see list, and somehow it still didn't disappoint one bit.

In reading about this rare fantasy for adults, I had seen valid comparisons to Alice in Wonderland, Brazil and many other movies (and, thanks to Mimi at the Movies, a reminder about the great Spirit of the Beehive), but what these mini-homages within "Pan's Labyrinth" really show us is just how much Guillermo del Toro loves movies. As a work of surprisingly high art, del Toro's movie stands apart from all these great flicks, in a unique world all its own.

If anything, I'd compare it very favorably to M. Night Shymalan's excremental "Lady in the Water." Whereas the formerly great M. Night purported to give us a "bedtime story" but just delivered dreck, del Toro starts with this premise and turns it into so much more.

The girl who creates this story, Ofelia, is played with refreshing restraint by Ivana Baquero. As the movie opens, we see her reading a tale about a princess of the underworld who finds herself on the surface and yearns to return. And from this deceptively simple story, Ofelia constructs a refuge from the real-world hell she finds herself in. Her mother, played by Ariadna Gil, has, for survival instead of love, married Capitan Vidal, the definition of evil as delivered by Sergi Lopez. At the outset, mom is very much pregnant, and the two of them are going to live with Capitan Vidal as he and his men work to wipe out the resistance to Franco's fascist regime.

A fun world for a kid, eh? Seen through her eyes, the very graphic violence perpetrated by the fascists seems even more brutal. Two things that amazed me about the fantasy world she creates to escape from this were that I never once thought it wasn't something that could come from the mind of a 12-year-old, and also that every step in the journey she creates for herself gives her the courage to do what she must in the real world around her.

I don't want to give too much away about this journey because this movie is all about the thrill of discovery. I'll just say you'll see things that might initially shock, but will keep you riveted. My favorite would have to be the mandrake root, both as it comes to life and then perishes. And why would you have one of the challenges be to make a giant toad vomit and then belch all over our heroine? Because this is a story created by a kid, and we never forget that no matter how dark it gets.

I could go on and on about this great movie, but just a couple more points and I'll wrap it up. I had heard so many warnings about the violence going in that perhaps it desensitized me a bit, but I found it all inherent in creating the perilous world young Ofelia finds herself cast into. As Kam Williams put it very well in the Black Star News, this isn't one "for the squeamish or fans of fascism." It's a world so brutal that, in del Toro's vision, only monsters can save us.

And a quick word about the acting. Young Ms. Baquero and Sergi Lopez are both great, but the real treat here is getting to watch Maribel Verdu again. I fell in love with her as the temptress of "Y Tu Mama Tambien," and here she delivers an even better performance as the enabler of Ofelia's fantasies, the house servant who first shows her the labyrinth next door.

You can call del Toro's movie any number of high-minded things. It is in parts an essay on the brutality of war and an elegy for the end of childhood, but more importantly it's a movie that lives up to the label "fantasy" and exceeds it at every turn. It's just that good, so if you haven't seen it yet, do so immediately.