'Pan's Labyrinth' no gentle 'Narnia'

Guillermo del Toro's "Pan's Labyrinth" is the second movie inside of a year to feature a mythical faun in a supporting role, but make no mistake: We're nowhere near a gentle "Narnia."As a fairy tale, "Pan's Labyrinth" is of the unvarnished variety that will keep you up at night: exceedingly, unflinchingly violent - and not for children. It's also among the most beautifully filmed fantasies in recent years, with lush images, like half-remembered dreamscapes, transmuted through a master surrealist's aesthetic in writer-director del Toro.But "Pan's Labyrinth" is most of all a drama. In 1944 Fascist Spain, 12-year-old Ofelia (Ivana Baquera) and her pregnant mother Carmen (Ariadna Gil), are bound for a rural military encampment at an old sawmill. That's where Carmen's new husband, Capt. Vidal (Sergi Lopez), is stationed, eager for the birth of what he's sure will be his son, and where guerilla fighters periodically make life difficult for Franco's followers. One of the rebels, the servant Mercedes (an excellent Meribel Verdu), is working on their behalf right under the nose of el Capitàn.As Vidal commits unspeakable acts of violence on suspected insurgents, Carmen falls ill; Vidal, for his part, is less concerned with her well-being than the survival of his offspring.Ofelia, meanwhile, takes solace in her books of fairy tales, and a blossoming friendship with Mercedes. Soon she is visited by a dragonfly, which is actually a fairy who leads the girl to an underworld guarded by Pan (Doug Jones). This marvelously imagined faun informs Carmen she is actually a princess, the daughter of the King of the Underworld, and must complete three tasks "before the moon is full" to reclaim her place.Guided by a magical book, Ofelia encounters beasts of astonishing variety - an enormous toad, a beast whose eyes are literally worn on his hands - as she attempts to complete her mission. But what is it? Questions, the faun tells her, are off limits. And then there is the final task, a trial that will test her ability to abide. If this is an escapist fantasy, it is not a cheery one. Still, the monsters and the obstacles Ofelia faces in this world are arguably less disconcerting than those extant in her physical reality, where evil - personified in the nasty captain, a man whose delight in torturing Republican rebels is palpable, almost erotically charged - is ascendant. There are painful scenes here, Fascist dogma delivered through the barrel of a gun or the calipers of a torturer's goody bag, and the most excruciating view of a stitches operation you'll ever witness.As it happens, Fascism is not a new subject for del Toro; his 2001 "The Devil's Backbone" is set a few years earlier, in 1939, as the Spanish Civil War is ending. In "Pan's Labyrinth," del Toro manages to expertly weave a political sensibility throughout his two worlds, both of which demand their inhabitants follow orders unquestioningly - and explore ways in which they abide by or reject this demand.A word about special effects: "Pan's Labyrinth" is a picture even CGI-averse filmgoers can swallow. Here, the graphics never detract from the exploration of human relationships and motivations. Story, not gee-wizzardry, is front and center. And del Toro has managed to combine elements of genres as diverse as horror, fantasy and drama into a beautiful - if disturbingly brutal - masterpiece that will stay with us long after the credits roll.- Nathan Donato-Weinstein can be reached at nathand@goldcountry- media.com.