Something Cult, Foreign-Language or Indie #80: Pan's Labyrinth (2006).

Eleven years before he swept to Oscar glory with, of all things, a tale of a mute woman fucking a carnivorous sea creature with last year's mesmerising The Shape of Water and before that took us around the Pacific Rim (though I won't hold that last one against him), Guillermo del Toro took us back to 1944 Spain with his rightly celebrated dark fantasy drama Pan's Labyrinth. It follows young Ofelia (Ivana Baquero), who moves with her mother Carmen (Ariadna Gil) to the countryside to live with her stepfather Vidal (Sergi Lopez), a despotic captain in Franco's army. Bored with the scenery and fearful of Vidal's cruel dominance, Ofelia goes exploring in the nearby woods where she encounters a strange labyrinth which is home to a magical faun named Pan (Doug Jones, later the fish-man in The Shape of Water). He tells her she is really the long-lost princess of a fantastical kingdom, but while encouraging of her, Pan is not exactly a warm and cuddly sage. To help her uncover the truth of her existence, he sets for Ofelia three increasingly precarious tasks involving an overgrown toad, a Pale Man (Jones again), and her baby half-brother. Meanwhile, domestically she must also endure Vidal's deteriorating relationships with her, his troops and his cowed, conspiring housekeeper (Maribel Verdu).

I've always found Pan's Labyrinth a rather dichotomous film with its intertwined storylines set in two different zones, but that's just why it's such an original and ambitious fantasy gem. Del Toro pulls it off because as Ofelia explores the labyrinth, he explores very lucidly how and why metaphors work. In chronicling how the labyrinth goes from a heavenly escape for Ofelia to somewhere as dark and trying as life under the war and Vidal's thumb, the movie ultimately becomes a very profound and thought-provoking take on imagination and the end of innocence.

Although nominated for 2006's Best Foreign Language Film Oscar (it lost to the overrated German film The Lives of Others), Pan's Labyrinth did, however, win for Art Direction, Cinematography and Make-Up, all of which were richly deserved, and del Toro was also nominated for his screenplay. He coaxes an affecting performance from Verdu and Lopez makes a icily charismatic villain, but carrying the movie so gracefully on her tiny shoulders is Ivana Baquero. Going from quiet bookishness to astonishment and then terror and eventual grief, she makes Ofelia a child heroine in whose shoes you can easily put yourself, and I wonder whatever has happened to her. Another plus is Javier Navarrette's exquisite score, and the visual effects are outstanding for a low-budget, non-Hollywood effort. Its heroine might have complete three hard tasks, but loving Pan's Labyrinth is one very easy one.