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Guillermo Del Toro

Ivana Baquero, Sergi Lopez

Freedom fighters, an ancient stone labyrinth, and an evil stepfather are elements in this anti-fascist fairy tale set in Franco’s Spain.

Mercedes: My mother told me to be wary of Fauns.

Its heroine may only be eleven years old, but Pan’s Labyrinth is a beautifully realized and brutally realistic fairy tale for adults. 

The year is 1944, early in Franco’s fascist regime, and Ofelia’s stepfather is a casually sadistic military commander in charge of mopping up any remaining pockets of resistance. He’s also a twisted and possessive man who insists on the bookish Ofelia and her sick, hugely pregnant mother joining him in the countryside garrison he and his troops have occupied.

Ofelia’s only real friends are a housekeeper named Mercedes who is secretly aiding the rebels, and the alternately menacing and ingratiating faun, who sets Ofelia on a series of tasks in a bewildering stone labyrinth.  Ofelia must walk the often treacherous line between following instructions and charting her own moral course.