Pan's Labyrinth (2006)

The festival kicked off officially with this film from Mexican director Guillermo del Toro and it was undoubtedly the best film of the weekend.  I believe this was its first major screening before a large audience since being in competition at Cannes (where it didn't win anything but did garner a 20-minute standing ovation), and it will be released in the UK in November and the US in December.  If you appreciate brilliant film-making, even if it comes with subtitles, be sure to see this movie.  Del Toro was in attendance and introduced the picture and answered questions afterwards; he is convinced that it is his finest film to date -- one that pleases him in every way -- and I would certainly not disagree with him.  It makes a fine companion piece to his earlier movie "The Devil's Backbone" since both are set in Spain just after the Civil War and both deal with the trauma of war on children.  The child here is played beautifully by 12-year Ivana Baquero whose widowed mother has remarried a real bastard of a captain and who 'though heavily pregnant joins him at a remote batallion surrounded by guerilla soldiers.  To face the horrors of her new life, the girl escapes into an Alice-like fantasy world where a magical faun tells her that she is a princess and that she must fulfil dangerous tasks to prove her worth; rather than depending on CGI, del Toro has the actor Doug Jones playing both the faun and the scary Pale Man on the posters for the movie (the one with his eyeballs in his palms!)  With her mother seriously ill, the girl has only one human ally in the housekeeper, played by Maribel Verdu (the sexpot from "Y Tu Mama Tambien") in a particularly strong performance.  Full credit too to Sergi Lopez whom I have only seen previously in French films for his strict and formidable captain.  I always prefer the del Toro films made in Spanish, starting with "Cronos", which he does inbetween accepting the Hollywood shilling (although even those have all been of interest).  What he gives us here is a very black allegory which straddles the war, fantasy and horror genres.  Miss it at your peril.