Pan's Labyrinth

**** Stars

Pan's Labyrinth is unlike anything you've ever seen. It is beautiful, heartbreaking, poetic, and wildly original. Set in 1940's Spain against the postwar repression of Franco's Spain, this is a fairy tale that centers on Ofelia (Ivana Baquero), a lonely and dreamy child living with her mother and adoptive father, who is a military officer forced to kill any innocent rebel that enters his land. In her loneliness, Ofelia creates a world filled with fantastical creatures and secret destinies. With Fascism at its height, Ofelia must come to terms with her world through a fable of her own creation. This works not only as a fantasy, but as a postwar drama. This is an astonishing feat in imaginative filmmaking.