Pan's Labyrinth

DVD review from Nick at Nite

Pan's Labyrinth

How do you know a foreign film is a good movie? Well, you know it is a good movie if the subtitles don't distract you or force you to lose interest in the film. This Spanish film was a good movie because for this English speaker -- it was as if it was not subtitled. It is an original story involving either the very vivid imagination of a teenage girl or a trippy visit to an underworld with magical creatures set against the backdrop of the fascist regime in Spain. It would be difficult to tell the story in a few lines and I am not interested in spoiling the movie for anyone that has not seen it. In short, a teenage girl is forced into a difficult situation with her stepfather and pregnant mother. She finds an escape and solace in a mysterious book and the promise that she might be a princess who has been missing from her "underworld kingdom" for many years.