Home | Business News | Browse by Publication | M | Marvels & Tales

Pan's Labyrinth / El Laberinto del Fauno.

Article Excerpt
Pan's Labyrinth / El Laberinto del Fauno. Written, directed, and produced by Guillermo del Toro. Color. 119 minutes. In Spanish with English subtitles. DVD. Estudios Picasso Tequila Gang Esperanto Filmo, 2006.

If you believe what many have written about this Academy Award-winning film--that the world of Pan and his labyrinth and his stories is a mirage that eleven-year-old Ofelia conjures up to protect herself from Franco's bloody Spain--don't see the film. But if you're up for a ride through the surrealistic realms of story, come along through the first door that opens. And in this wondrous film the doors just keep opening.

In Pan's Labyrinth / El Laberinto del Fauno Guillermo del Toro of Guadalajara, Mexico, creates two parallel worlds that intersect for people such as Ofelia. One is 1944, five years after the end of the Spanish Civil War, as Republicans keep trying to win back their country from the victorious Nationalists under General Francisco Franco and his dreaded Guardias Civil. Captain Vidal and his Nationalist soldiers are fighting against a small but determined group of Republican guerillas. Against doctors' recommendations, Vidal has his wife, Carmen (who is about to give birth), and her daughter, Ofelia (from her earlier marriage), chauffeured to his headquarters in a ruined mill in the forest. The film's other world reaches back before time, to the King and Queen...

View this article FREE - Now for a Limited Time, try Goliath Business News
Free for 3 Days!