Movie Review - Pan's Labyrinth

Today, I went to work and spontaneously decided to take off around 11:00am to go to a movie with El Principe. Since Principe does not have to work for these two days, I thought he might be bored out of his mind already. It's mostly because I was browsing the movie listings around and I saw this movie called "Pan's Labyrinth" that I really wanted to see and it's in Spanish, so I thought it would be a good idea to go. Principe originally told me that he wants to go to his counsin's around 3:00 pm and it's his last day off, since currently I really hate being at the office, so I thought to myself, why not?

The movie is about a girl who lived in politically unstable Spain during World War II named Ofelia (By the way, I still believe that the Japanese named their newest gaming console "Wii" as an effort to replace the bad association of WWII). After Ofelia's father died, her mother and her moved to her new stepdad's fortress. Her mother is pregnant and sick, her new stepfather is a cruel general who kill peole at will. To close herself out of the mean world, Ofelia immerses herself in fairy tales. During her journey, she was being followed by a large flying mantis which later turned into a fairy and lead her into a labyrinth next to her stepfather's camp. There, she encountered a half-human, half-goat monster called a Faun who tell her that she actually was a princess of the underground world but in order for her to return to the netherworld, she must perform three tasks to prove her valor.

The twists and turns between reality and fantasy, the ailing mother, the cruel stepfather, the army and the revolution compose a fantastically romantic story of Odelia. The gloomy and dark background of World War II curiously harmonizes with the mysterious darkness of a fairy tale. I guess they were right, black goes well with everything. The story of a helpless girl, much like its predecesor Annie or Matilda, allows the viewer to take the main character's side almost instantenously. Overall, I'm amazed at the storytelling ability of the director. This movie is well worth the money. It's a "B+"!