Pan's Labyrinth: A

And the award for "Who Knew This Guy Had Talent??" goes to...Guillermo Del Toro! This is Del Toro's first nomination and it signifies that this monster-loving writer/director has all the makings of an amazing talent, that perhaps he should join the ranks of that other Mexican master filmmaker: Alfonso Cuaron (who exec-produced Pan's Labyrinth). This is yet another sterling late-release film I was unable to view before year's end.

The story here is one of almost banal simplicity: a young girl named Ofelia (Ivana Baquero) and her mother Carmen (Adriana Gil) go to live with Captain Vidal (Sergi Lopez, the very vision of evil incarnate) in the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War. Carmen is carrying Vidal's baby and it's quite clear that that's the only reason he married her in the first place. Ofelia herself spends hours reading while the Captain brutally executes guerrilla rebels in the hills around their military post. Ofelia, ever the bookworm, gets sucked into a fairytale where she is the princess of a long lost underground kingdom. In order to return there (and subsequently escape fascism and the evils it entails) she must complete three tasks as ordained by Pan (Doug Jones), a faun whose very syntax sends shivers up my spine. The tasks involve large fig trees, fairies, giant toads, and a demon known as the Pale Man (Doug Jones) that sits forever inert at a subterranean dinner table...waiting for his next victim.

All the while that Ofelia is scurrying about completing tasks and being wonderfully resourceful, there is a story of tragic insurgency going on in the "real world" (I use that because here, in this dark and disturbing myth, where does reality end and fantasy begin?). The captain spends days oppressing the village he protects while his maid Mercedes (Maribel Verdu, on loan from Alfonso Cuaron's Y Tu Mama Tambien) spends equally as much time secretly trying to thwart him. Indeed one of the film's many great climaxes occurs as Mercedes escapes Vidal's torture using only a small blade and her own steely resolve.

What Guillermo Del Toro has created is a terriying fairy tale and a twisted war story. The genius of his creation however is that he blends the two seamlessly. His intuition into Ofelia's imagination is so deeply felt, that it is impossible to tell whether she is the subject of her own mental sanctuary or whether she reallly is to be a Princess in her own secret kingdom. The fantastical imagery itself could have made this a great horror story but Del Toro is willing to reach deeper and come up with a film of shocking emotional ferocity. The word masterpiece is much to common for this movie, but it is most definitely Del Toro's masterwork. He's taken elements from everything he's ever touched (be it the monsters of Mimic, or the cracked characters of Hellboy, or even the atmosphere of The Devil's Backbone) and created one of the most inventive, rich, powerful spectacles of cinema I have ever seen. It shook me to my core and has haunted my dreams for days.