Pan's Labyrinth (2006)
TOMATOMETER
AUDIENCE SCORE
Critic Consensus: Pan's Labyrinth is Alice in Wonderland for grown-ups, with the horrors of both reality and fantasy blended together into an extraordinary, spellbinding fable.
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Cast
as Ofelia
as Vidal
as Mercedes
as Doctor
as Pan/Pale Man
as Carmen
as Garces
as Serrano
as Pedro
as El Tarta
as El Tarta
as Frances
as Father
as Priest
as Mayor
as Mayor's Wife
as First-Aid Boss
as First-Aid Boss
as Civil Guard Captain
as Doctor's Wife
as Conchita
as Jacinta
as Paz
as Trigo
as Young Man
as Engineer
as Manager
as Sergeant Bayona
as Sergeant Bayona
as Young Guerrilla No. 1
as Young Guerrilla No. 2
as King
as Old Man
as Insect
as Fairy/Ballerina
as Stick Insect
as Stick Insect
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Critic Reviews for Pan's Labyrinth
All Critics (226) | Top Critics (49) | Fresh (215) | Rotten (11) | DVD (21)
Guillermo del Toro has crafted a masterpiece, a terrifying, visually wondrous fairy tale for adults that blends fantasy and gloomy drama into one of the most magical films to come along in years.
This is a fantasy realm so fully and elegantly realized, it might be the adaptation of a classic novel. Yet the source is Del Toro's own capacious imagination.
Ofelia's smock is swiped from Alice, her faun from Narnia, and her magic book from Harry Potter, Del Toro sets her fairytale apart with its unrelenting gore and misery.
Pan's Labyrinth suggests that fairy-tale violence helps the vulnerable process and overcome real-life conflicts and that real-life violence permanently smashes the soul and the heart.
So breathtaking in its artistic ambition, so technically accomplished, so morally expansive, so fully realized that it defies the usual critical blather. See it, and celebrate that rare occasion when a director has the audacity to commit cinema.
A violent fantasy set during the Spanish Civil War, this magical film from Guillermo del Toro manages that intellectual high-mindedness, even as it resonates on a primal, mythic level.
Audience Reviews for Pan's Labyrinth
Del Toro creates a magnificent fairy tale for grown-ups in which the innocence of fantasy collides with the horrors of war - and the result is a devastating, poignant and unforgettable film of lyrical beauty, with astonishing visuals, great performances and a wonderful score.
Super Reviewer
Super Reviewer
A little girl and her pregnant mother are relocated to an army camp to be with the unborn baby's father, an officious and sadistic captain in Franco's fascist military. Pan's Labyrinth is a gothic fantasy that sees a young girl escape into a world of fauns, fairys and political allegory to escape her cold, cruel, clockwatching, jack-booted step-father who is a kindred spirit of Schindler's List's Goethe. Once again Del Toro blends beautiful imagery with an affecting war story and the result is an enchanting experience that mirrors the fight between good and evil in both the real world and a young child's imagination in a way that reminded me a lot of the work of Hayao Miyazaki. Young Ivana Baquero puts in a performance that belies her tender years and the stunning visuals create a fantasy world that is beautiful yet conveys a suitably dark and disturbing undercurrent in Guillermo Del Toro's inimitable style. The two stories didn't quite gel together for me, feeling more like two separate stories told in parallel and so I must admit I prefer The Devil's backbone, but fans of Tim Burton and Jeunet will adore it.
Super Reviewer
Pan's Labyrinth Quotes
| Vidal: | You could have obeyed me! |
| Doctor: | But Captain, to obey, just like that, for obedience's sake... without questioning... That's something only people like you do. |
| Ofelia: | Many, many years ago in a sad, faraway land, there was an enormous mountain made of rough, black stone. At sunset, on top of that mountain, a magic rose blossomed every night that made whoever plucked it immortal. But no one dared go near it because its thorns were full of poison. Men talked amongst themselves about their fear of death, and pain, but never about the promise of eternal life. And every day, the rose wilted, unable to bequeath its gift to anyone... forgotten and lost at the top of that cold, dark mountain, forever alone, until the end of time. |
| Carmen: | You're getting older, and you'll see that life isn't like your fairy tales. The world is a cruel place. And you'll learn that, even if it hurts. |
| Pan / Pale Man: | And it is said that the Princess returned to her father's kingdom. That she reigned there with justice and a kind heart for many centuries. That she was loved by her people. And that she left behind small traces of her time on Earth, visible only to those who know where to look. |
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