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After her father dies and her mother (Ariadna Gil) remarries, Ofelia (Ivana Baquero) is moved to a mill in a rural area in 1940s Spain to live with her pregnant mother and her new stepfather, Capitán Vidal (Sergi López). On her first night in her new home, a fairy summons her to the forest, where she meets a faun (Doug Jones), who tells her that she is the reincarnation of Princess Moanna, daughter of the king of the underworld. To prove that she really is the princess, the faun explains, she needs to accomplish three tasks before the next full moon. And once she does, she’ll be reunited with her father. Eager to escape her life with her stepfather and his bloodthirsty troops, she sets out to do as the faun tells her.
Meanwhile, the Capitán has tasks of his own to accomplish. A band of rebels are hiding out in the forest not far from the mill, and they seem to know exactly where to go to steal provisions—and exactly when to attack. He’s also worried about his new wife, who’s having a difficult time with her pregnancy—and he’s worried that something may happen to his unborn son.
When you think about fauns and fairies, you may think about cute kids’ movies like The Chronicles of Narnia, but El Laberinto del Fauno (or, in English, Pan’s Labyrinth) is a mystical Spanish film that definitely isn’t for kids—and not just because of the subtitles. It’s a seriously disturbing film with gruesome creatures and even more gruesome human characters. Perhaps I’ve just had more than my fill of blood and death in movies lately, but I found some of the scenes in Pan’s Labyrinth to be even more disturbing than the throat slicings and human sacrifices in Apocalypto. And if I can’t handle it, I’m pretty sure you don’t want your kids watching it.
The creepy characters and horrifying death scenes could be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on your taste. But the story just doesn’t work. Maybe I’m just a slow reader—or maybe I was too tired to keep up with all the subtitles—but I had a hard time following the story. Ofelia’s quest isn’t all that interesting, and, other than that, it doesn’t seem like much happens, besides people dying in nasty ways. There just isn’t enough background information about the political climate of the time—or about the rebels who are hiding in the forest—to care about what happens. So while Pan’s Labyrinth is an imaginative film, the story is lacking—and it’s just not worth the time or the effort.
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