Dad,

I finally got around to watching Pan’s Labyrinth the other night, thanks to my neighbor’s vast collection of DVD’s. If you haven’t seen it, I recommend it highly (the movie, I mean, not the DVD collection.) It is dark and moody and gruesome in a chilly way, but it finds perfect moments to shine and percolate with emotion.

My wife is not a horror movie fan, so I was reluctant to watch it with her. We had friends that saw it and said that it was pretty graphic. Once we watched it, however, we found that the graphic nature of the movie was not related to the fantasy stuff, but the harsh realities of Spain in the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War.

The heroine in the movie is a young girl named Ophelia, and she has a set of adventures that take her away from the world that surrounds her, a world that is brutal and unforgiving.  Ophelia is a wonderful personification of the young spirit, a spirit that isn’t aware enough of the world to be entirely encompassed by fear and rejection, but continues to find joy and hope.

One of the fascinating aspects of this film is that it is almost impossible to determine whether Ophelia is imagining another world, or there is another world that others cannot see. This is Alice In Wonderland – the Guillermo Del Toro, independent film, not-kid-friendly version.

here is a nice trailer:

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This is a beautiful film, deserving of all of the awards and praise.

Bryan