Donna hates scary film trailers and in a world of Tivo, we don’t watch commercials anymore. It’s to the point where sometimes the commercials come on, and she will pause for a while so she can then fast forward through them. So anyway, she doesn’t watch scary previews, and some people would say that Pan’s Labyrinth falls into this category, and I suppose I thought it would be scarier than it was. I also thought it would be underworld and less above world, but I did enjoy del Toro’s allegory of the struggles for indepence against the Spanish facist regime in 1944 Spain. Of course, I also forgot that it was subtitled.

It bothered me a whole two minutes before I became mesmerized by the cineatic filters and the subtle undertones of military conflicts between the Captain’s army stationed at the mill and the rebels in the mountains surrounding the area. Ofelia, lost in a world of make-believe and fairies, has recently lost her tailor father and her mother has remarried to give the captain an heir and to save herself in the midst of revolution at world wars. Ofelia rebels against the world as it is and slips into a fantasy world that the viewer never rectifies. She is supposedly the underworld’s princess and lost daughter of the King of the Underworld. She is told all of this by Pan (played phenomenally by Doug Jones who you will later see as the Silver Surfer in Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer) who also plays Pale Man –both of whom are the most cinematic characters in the tale. I trusted Pan almost as much as I trust Severus Snape (at least until this summer). I won’t give away the ending or this on, dear readers. I will tell you I enjoyed it. Moreover, I am pleasantly surprised by it’s five nominations this year, and I would guarantee it will win at least one that will remain nameless and maybe others.

Yes, I am being ambiguous on purpose here. I can’t give away all my secrets. Until Little Children.