It is also disappointingly unsatisfying.
While the film's marketing has stressed the fantasy aspect, this is no children's movie. The violence in the film is brutal, even more intense than that of Schindler's List, and the film's villain, the sadistic Capitán Vidal, played by Sergi López, comes as close as can be to evil incarnate.
The story is seen mostly through the eyes of the captain's stepdaughter, Ofelia, convincingly portrayed by 12-year-old Ivana Baquero. Ofelia moves with her late-term pregnant mother to northern Spain, where Vidal is in charge of soldiers defending the Franco regime from well-organized leftist rebels. While Vidal sometimes kills for the sake of killing, and hypocritically indulges himself while countrymen are starving, Ofelia finds her escape in a world where she is seen as a potential princess — if only she can fulfill three tasks. Her guide in the world, which she enters through a labyrinth near her new home, is a faun played by Doug Jones — the only non-Spanish-speaking actor in the movie (his words were seamlessly dubbed in).
The girl's fantastical world is frightening and reassuring at the same time, just like you might expect for the nightmares of a 12-year-old. It's incredibly detailed, and the visual feast it provides belies the film's reported $15 million (U.S.) budget, little by Hollywood standards but a major investment in Spain.
Most of the film's action takes place in the historical world, where the captain must contend with betrayal from his inner circle as well as a stubborn leftist insurgency. Vidal shows no mercy to his foes, and the film at times becomes excruciating to watch for anyone who hasn't become insensitized to torture, war injuries, up-close surgery and arbitrary killing. And in a side plot that calls attention to the fairy-tale aspects of the overall story, Vidal awaits from Ofelia's mother the birth of a son, to whom he hopes to pass on his pathetic legacy.
The combination of the two film genres comes across has less of a split personality than might be expected. Del Toro ties the stories together primarily through Ofelia's character, and both worlds are filled with danger and an utter lack of comic relief. Although not really a horror film, it becomes as frightening and suspenseful as the best of them.
In a technical sense, Del Toro's El laberinto del fauno is filmmaking at its best. Indeed, some critics have called it the No. 1 film of 2006, and it garnered six well-deserved Academy Award nominations.
But it nevertheless is a disappointment: Laberinto lacks a moral point of view. Several of the major characters show incredible courage, but to what end? Is this all there is to war, or to a young girl's dreams? If Laberinto has any statement to make, it's this: Whatever meaning you find in life ultimately doesn't matter. Laberinto offers a great journey that is certain to become a cinematic classic, but it's a journey to nowhere.
Overall rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars.
Linguistic notes: The film is entirely in Castilian Spanish. As shown in the U.S., the English subtitles often appear before the spoken word, making it easier to understand the generally straightforward Spanish.
For those familiar with Latin American Spanish but not that of Spain, you'll notice two main differences, but neither should prove to be a major distraction: First, it is common in this film to hear the use of vosotros (the second-person familiar plural pronoun) and the accompanying verb conjugations where you'd expect to hear ustedes in most of Latin America. Second, the main pronunciation difference is that in Castilian the z and the c (before e or i) are pronounced very much like the "th" in "thin." Although the difference is distinct, you probably won't notice the differences as much as you'd think you might.
Also, since this film is set in World War II, you'll hear none of the anglicisms and youthful lingo that have permeated modern Spanish. In fact, with the exception of a couple choice epithets loosely translated to English in the subtitles, much of the Spanish of this film isn't all that much different than what you might find in a good third-year Spanish textbook.
Content advisory: El laberinto del fauno is not appropriate for children. It includes numerous scenes of brutal wartime violence, and some less intense violence (including decapitation) in the fantasy world. There are plenty of perilous and otherwise frightening scenes. There is some vulgar language, but it is not pervasive. There is no nudity or sexual content.
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