Pan's Labyrinth (2 Disc Set) [2006] [DVD]

Product Description ------------------- Spanish fantasy story directed by Guillermo del Torro ('Cronos') with stunning sets, shocking scenes and effects - set in the mind's eye of a lonely young girl. Ofelia (Ivana Baquero) is a young girl in a remote ain village in Spain in 1944 after Franco's ascension to power. To escape the upheaval and hardship her family faces (her her died in the war and her mother (Aria Gil) has been forced to re-marry to a despotic Captain in Franco's fascist army), Ofelia creates a world in her mind. It's a beautiful place though not without its dark side but she's guided by a ghastly yet kindly fawn creature. The Captain, it soon transpires, is more interested in the son Ofelia's mother is carrying, than he is in either Ofelia or her mother. Mercedes (Maribel Verdú), the Captain's considerate servant, and Dr. Ferreiro the Captain's physician, are, it transpires, in league with the revolutionaries in the woods surrounding the army encampment. These resistance fighters are intent on liberating the rationed food and medicines they need. As the increasingly manic and paranoid captain assassinates anyone who looks at him the wrong way with alarming regularity, Ofelia's secret quests set by the fawn creature to unlock the portal to another world become more and more urgent. With its deft mixing of CGI and actual character scenes, political and social statement, Pan's Labyrinth has been referred to already as 'The Citizen Kane of fantasy films'. .co.uk Review ------------- Inspired by the Brothers Grimm, Jorge Luis Borges, and Guillermo del Toro's own unlimited imagination, Pan's Labyrinth is a fairytale for adults. Ofelia (Ivana Baquero) may only be 12, but the worlds she inhabits, both above and below ground, are dark as anything del Toro has conjured. Set in rural Spain, circa 1944, Ofelia and her widowed mother, Carmen (Aria Gil, Belle Epoque), have just moved into an abandoned mill with Carmen's new husband, Captain Vidal (Sergi López, With a Friend like Harry). Carmen is pregnant with his son. Other than her ly mother and kindly housekeeper Mercedes (Maribel Verdú, Y Tu Mamá También), the dreamy Ofelia is on her own. Vidal, an exceedingly cruel man, couldn't be bothered. He has informers to torture. Ofelia soon finds that an entire universe exists below the mill. Her guide is the persuasive Faun (Doug Jones, Mimic). As her mother grows weaker, Ofelia spends more and more time in the satyr's labyrinth. He offers to help her out of her predicament if she'll complete three treacherous tasks. Ofelia is willing to try, but does this alternate reality really exist or is it all in her head? Del Toro leaves that up to the viewer to decide in a beautiful, yet brutal twin to The Devil's Back, which was also haunted by the ghost of Franco. Though it lacks the humour of Hellboy, Pan's Labyrinth represents Guillermo Del Toro at the top of his considerable game. --Kathleen C. Fennessy

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