Pan’s Labyrinth: A Review

Pan’s Labyrinth is easily the best movie of 2006 that I have seen. As of now, I have not seen The Departed, The Queen, Letters from Iwo Jima, and Babel (I hope to see them all in the next two weeks), but I cannot imagine that any of them can top Guillermo del Toro’s vision and filmmaking in this movie. Pan’s Labyrinth is, in a word, breathtaking.

Set in 1944 in Franco’s Spain, Labyrinth is, as many critics have pointed out, an adult fairy tale. A young girl named Ofelia (brilliantly portrayed by Ivana Baquero) must cope with a world gone mad with the violence of war. This madness has reached into her own family since her mother has married a captain in Franco’s army, who is actively engaged in hunting down and killing rebel forces in the area around his home. Captain Vidal (Sergi L