A bit late in the game, but I only just got around to seeing Guillermo Del Toro's Pan's Labyrinth, which is not only clearly the best film of 2006, but a movie which might well ultimately stand among the greats of all time. Nothing Del Toro has done previously--personal projects like Cronos or commercial claptrap like Blade II or Hellboy--could have prepared me for what he accomplishes here. This is the work of a filmmaker in astonishing control of his medium, using it to illuminate the depths of the human soul.
Set in Spain in 1944, it is the story of a young girl, Ofelia, brought to live by her widowed mother with her new stepfather, a sadistic captain in Franco's army, and the parallel fantasy life she leads as the horrors of the real world fester all around her. Pan's Labyrinth is many, many things. It is, above all, one of the finest fantasy films ever made. But it is also a serious, probing meditation on the nature of facism, and as an exploration of the adult world from a child's perspective, it ranks with such films as Curse Of the Cat People, Heavenly Creatures, and even The Night Of the Hunter--a movie I hold in such high regard, I wouldn't make comparisons to it lightly. But Del Toro honestly earns the comparison.
He also explicitly references the works of many other filmmakers--from Luis Bunuel and Jean Cocteau to Mario Bava and Terence Fisher. But he's evoking, not imitating, and honestly, based on his accomplishment here, Del Toro may be the equal of any of them. Every cut, every camera move is carefully considered, the use of CGI is the best I've ever seen, and Javier Narravete's score is achingly beautiful. But perhaps the strongest aspect of all is Del Toro's original script, rich in character, with dialogue that bounces off itself to shattering effect, as when Ofelia's mother, at the beginning of the film, instructs her to call the captain "Father" ("It's just a word") to the end, when the captain is told his own son will never know his name.
And, as with any movie that has a profound emotional effect, there's a personal connection. One of the movies Pan's Labyrinth recalled (intentionally, I suspect) is Jim Henson's Labyrinth, with Jennifer Connelly as a young girl braving a fantasy world that may or may not exist only in her imagination in order to save her baby brother's life. This was a favorite of my mother's, and as Pan's Labyrinth reached its tragic (or was it transcendental?) conclusion, I suddenly had a vision of Mom watching it, and reacting to that scene by releasing torrents of tears, and me having to walk her up the aisle afterwards. As the credits rolled I realized I was in a whole other world emotionally, unsure if it was the movie or this unexpected reaction, and realizing that it made no difference anyway.
