Review of "Pan's Labyrinth"

"Pan's Labyrinth" is the story of a young girl who travels with her pregnant mother to live with her mother's new husband in a rural area up North in Spain, 1944, after Franco's victory. The girl lives in an imaginary world of her own creation and faces the real world with much chagrin. Post-war Fascist repression is at its height in rural Spain and the girl must come to terms with that through a fable of her own.
You are never quite sure if the girl’s fable or the often gruesome world she faces daily is true reality. The cinematography is dark, but imaginative and vivid. The acting is superb and not overdone.

The fascists are portrayed as hypocritical, morally and intellectually bankrupt. The Republican guerillas fight a short term lost cause, but adhere to a higher morality. The story line follows the same old tired theme of Christian institutions i.e. the Roman Catholic Church siding with fascist designs on eliminating the open minded i.e. The Republicans. Despite this, there is a central story of the shedding of “innocent blood” that results in redemption and renewal by movie’s end.