>>REVIEW
PAN’S LABYRINTH
STARRING Ivana Baquero, Doug Jones and Sergi Lopez
DIRECTED Guillermo del Toro
Opens Friday, January 19
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Pan’s Labyrinth, Guillermo del Toro’s magnificent tale of the resilience of the human spirit is both enchanting and illuminating. Set in 1944 Northern Spain during the rise of fascism, the film is part celebration, part requiem, juxtaposing the bottomless cruelty of dictatorship against the boundless imagination of a child.
After a young girl, Ofelia (Ivana Baquero), travels with her pregnant mother Carmen (Ariadna Gil) to meet her new stepfather at his operations base, she is soon left to fend for herself and her imagination takes the reins.
Baquero performs with clarity and precision, joining the ranks of the impressive adult cast by whom she is surrounded – conveying innocence and wisdom, bravado and timidity with a single flash of her incredibly soulful eyes.
Plunging into a dark underworld inhabited by frightful creatures and magical fairies, her fantasy world is filled with characters as terrifying as the bleak reality she struggles to escape. The special effects are spellbinding. From the slime-coated, tree-murdering toad, to an eyeless gorger of babies (Doug Jones), the creatures in the underground world come alive in beautifully surreal fashion.
Pan (Jones again), the messenger of her imaginary parents sent to coax the waif out of her world through a series of tests is vexing and mysterious, and it’s not clear until the very end if his motives are good or evil.
Mercedes (Maribel Verdú) shimmers as the deceptively meek housekeeper with deep convictions gurgling dangerously close to the surface. When she is viciously backed into a corner, her retaliation is both swift and justified, providing one of the film’s most stunning moments.
At times, jarring violence is tough to take for even the most jaded of viewers and we’re meant to be rattled out of our complacency by these lurching moments of savagery. With his studiously oiled hair and fleshy but wall-eyed features, Captain Vidal (Sergi Lopez) proves the scariest monsters often lurk under a human façade.
As a young widow trying to eke out a better life for her child, Gil makes a poor choice in the cold, distant officer who takes more of an interest in his unborn heir than his wife. Her suffering is palpable and tweaks the heart, but it’s not clear why she doesn’t do more to protect her daughter from the imminent perils. That said, it’s the only flaw in this impeccable film.
Larger than a fantasy, Pan’s Labyrinth is del Toro’s opus to the resilience of the human spirit. |
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