Film Review : El Laberinto del Fauno**** In English, Pan's Labyrinth, I don't know if you can see the film dubbed into English, but I saw it in Spanish at the excellent value (£3.50 !!) Pictureville cinema at the National Media Museum in Bradford, the Ntional Museum of Photography, Film and Television as it was previosuly known. Guillermo Del Toro both directed and wrote the screenplay for this odd, but wonderful, film set in the time after the facist victory in the Spanish civil war. Ivana Baquero plays Ofelia, the young daughter of a widow whose husband died in the civil war, the mother has agreed to wed a violent captain of the facist guard, Ofelia and her mother are brought to the facist's forest outpost to live, the mother is heavily pregnant with the Captain's son. Once there, Ofelia is brought to the Labyrinth by the faerie servnats of the Fawn/Pan, he expalins that she is actually a Princess of the underwolrd, lost to the world above in human form, he gives her three tasks that must be completed before full moon in order for her to return to her true family. The film shows love, honour and righteousness amidst the horror of war. Ofelia believes the stories of the fawn, but loves her mother and her unborn brother, she follows the fawn's instructions but is unable to follow without question as the fawn demands. Also acting against the maniac Captain are Mercedes, who is his maid and cook and sister to one of the Communist freedom fighters hiding out in the hills, played by Maribel Verdu, and the Captain's personal physician, Dr. Ferreiro, played by Alex Angulo. I wasn't prepared for the level of violence shown in the film, and beyond Del Toro trying to show us that war is brutal, I didn't really see the need for it, I wonder what level of violence a film needs to get an 18 rating today ? Pan's Labyrinth was rated 15 despite a quite sickening scene of a man having his face beaten in with a broken bottle and another of a nasty facial wound being stitched up. I thought the violence jarred against the rest of the film, the same message would have been put across just as well without the gratuitous gore porn. The film cleverly looks at hope, trust and redemption in a time when all of things seem lost, it also places high value on independant thinking and free will, the right do do what feels correct to you. Although Ofelia is pulld this way and that by the conflicting desires and needs of the Fawn and her Mother, it is her own free spirit and unsullied moral code that keeps her on the path of good. This is a splendid film from the creator of the above average comic book translation Hellboy, it has already won a heap of awards around the world for 'Best Foreign Language Film' and is well worth going to see.