Was wondering in the local Blockbuster the other night with my sister and we picked up Pan’s Labyrinth. As we were being checked out the girl at the counter ask if we were aware that the movie was subtitled, while I knew it was a foreign film and have no problems with subtitles (hell half of what I watch is subtitled), but with as much buzz that this film was getting I thought they would have dubbed it.

It was not quite what I was expecting. This is what I knew before watching Pan’s Labyrinth: I had heard that it was a good movie and had gotten good reviews from the critics and manged to win a couple of Academy Awards. I had seen commercials and a trailer they all played up the fantasy elements of the film. But, nothing that I had seen talk about the setting of the film which takes place in Spain during the anti-fascist revolution. Ofelia is a shy young girl who like to read and tell fairy-tales. Her mother has remarried, for all the wrong reason, a Captain in the fascist army. He is a man capable of unspeakable violence with little or no provocation.

It is this world where little Ofelia finds the enter into an underground chamber where she meets the Faun (Pan) who claims that she is the reborn daughter of the king of the underground realm. The Faun gives little Ofelia tasks to perform that will prove if she is ready to retake her place at the king’s side. Ofelia tries her best to complete the tasks but something always does not go quite according to plan with each one, leaving Ofelia in more trouble with either her new step-dad or the Faun. While a this is going on with Ofelia there is the other plots that are taking place with the rebels and Ofelia’s mother’s troubled pregnancy, and they why the movie ended came as quite a shock to me. The film was visually very stunning and the multiple story lines were woven in to a very nice whole. It was more along the lines of a original Brother Grimm fairy tale which were often quite dark.

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