It's always been difficult to correctly render fantasy on the silver screen. All those fairies, pointy ears, and the like are often laughed at by filmgoers who can't stomach anything that "can't happen". Making a film that tries to meld the fantastical and the "real world" is an even more daunting task. That's what makes Guillermo Del Toro's ravishing Pan's Labyrinth such a cinematic triumph.

Set in a post-war Spain circa 1944, we see a pregnant woman named Carmen (Adriana Gil) and her young daughter Ofelia (played with touchingly grave maturity by the remarkable Ivana Baquero), on their way to a picturesque country cottage where the woman's new husband, Captain Vidal (a hissable Sergi López) has summoned them to. He and his army regiment are there to squash the resistance nestled in the woods nearby, and Vidal wishes to have his baby son born where he is, no matter what the consequences to his sickly wife (whom he callously views as little more than a vessel to deliver the boy who will carry on his family legacy). Ofelia is naturally resentful of the man who has taken the place of her late father, and the fantasy books she favors offer a retreat from her bleak future.

She begins to imagine that she's inhabited by the reincarnated soul of the lost princess of one of her stories, and that a gnarled old faun (the spindly Doug Jones, who portrayed Abe Sapien in Del Toro's Hellboy) assigns her three tasks, including outwitting a monstrous toad ensconced in the roots of an ancient, dying tree and getting a key allowing access to the realm of the grotesque "Pale Man" (Jones again) to prove her lineage and allow her to return with him to the underworld kingdom from whence she came. But ugly reality consistently butts into Ofelia's dreams, with her mother growing deathly ill, the house's head maid (Maribel Verdu) secretly offering assistance to the hidden battalion of freedom fighters, and Captain Vidal's cruelty and suspicions growing.

Del Toro's film entwines the viewer in an intoxicating mixture of gripping historical drama and haunting nightmare imagery, with each "reality" co-exisiting and building upon one another until it comes to a head in a elaborate denouement that manages to feel triumphant and tragic in equal measure. Stunningly visualized, wonderfully performed by the entire cast, psychologically complex, and emotionally shattering, Pan's Labyrinth is the finest film of 2006.


Presentation
A film as frequently dark as Pan's Labyrinth requires a transfer of the highest calibre, and New Line's DVD, for the most part, delivers. There's the occasional bit of smudginess (especially fading into the opening shot), but the black levels look appropriately atmospheric, nicely reproducing Guillermo Navarro's Oscar-winning cinematography. The soundtrack offers an elaborate Spanish track in full 7.1 DTS (also offering more basic Dolby Digital tracks in 5.1 and 2.0), which gives the surround speakers a workout. The flutter of fairy wings, the creaks and groans of the old house, the subwoofer thumps of explosions all zip from one end of the room to the other in an impressive display, complimenting but not overpowering the film's dialogue and Javier Nararette's evocative, Oscar-nominated score.

Disc Extras
Disc One of New Line's two-disc SE (a one-disc version is also available) offers a fine audio commentary with writer/director Guillermo Del Toro, who goes into detail regarding the countless props (a key, a knife) and visual settings (a table heaped with food with a monster seated at the head) that mirror each other in the "real" and "fantasy" sections of the film. He also discusses the film's logistical production woes, the general concepts of fairy tales he wanted to echo, and how proud he was when he showed the film to hardened horror author Stephen King, who squirmed with suspense during the über-creepy "Pale Man" sequence. There are also 2 Theatrical Trailers and 7 TV Spots, as well as a Video Introduction to the feature by Del Toro and a still-frame archive with various poster designs.

Disc Two has a section with four Featurettes, which consist of The Power Of Myth (Del Toro going into more detail on the conventions of fairy tales), Pan And The Fairies (looking into the elaborate prosthetic and mechanical effects used to bring his imaginative menagerie of fantasy creations to life), The Color And The Shape (examining the selective uses of color and design elements to designate the "real" and "fantasy" sections of the film).

There's also an episode of The Charlie Rose Show, with the celeb interviewer hosting a roundtable discussion with Del Toro and fellow Mexican filmmakers Alfonso Cuarón (Children Of Men) and Alejandro Gonzales Iñárritu
(Babel). This is a funny, insightful chat with the "Three Caballeros" that offers much insight into the thought processes of the three directors and how much they help each other honing the rough cuts of each others' films.

Animated DVD Comics (cute, but skippable), an interactive Director's Notebook (offering still-frame pages from Del Toro's personal notebook, with brief embedded video featurettes studded throughout), multi-angle Storyboard Comparisons (the usual stuff), more Still-Frame Archives featuring character designs, production photos, and the like. The lack of deleted scenes is rather disappointing (on the Charlie Rose segment, Del Toro fesses up that Cuarón helped him shave ten minutes off the film's running time), but overall, this is a meaty, satisfying collection of extras that will sate your appetite without making you sick with overkill.

Bottom Line
An exquisite, heart-wrenching dissection of the power of fantasy and how it juxtaposes with the brutality of reality, Pan's Labyrinth is an imaginative gem that fans of the director (or anyone who craves fairies and pointy ears) should not miss. My favorite motion picture of 2006.