Opinions on Pan's Labyrinth by those who've seen it?

[Occhidiangela]

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0457430/

I watched Pan's Labyrinth today after hearing so much Oscar buzz about it and seeing the really cool trailers a million times. I enjoyed the film quite a bit, but the trailers certainly are misleading.

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SPOILER RESPONSES
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Pan's Labyrinth is NOT the pure fantasy film the trailers make it out to be.

It was a masterful weaving of fantasy and reality together in a story.

It is in fact the story of a young girl, and her experiences after traveling with her pregnant mother to meet her stepfather. Her stepfather is a brutal and sadistic military man of some rank and has been tasked with ridding the local countryside of a small rebel uprising.

Deebye, the man is referred to as "The Captain" frequently in the film, and the references to the year, 1944, Spain, and Franco are rather obvious. The uniforms are historically accurate. It takes place in Spain after the Spanish Civil war is mostly over, but where some insurgent Communist guerillas. (NPR's commentator calls them "anti-Fascists" rather than Communists, which is I guess what one can expect from NPR.)

A reference is explicitly made to the Allied landing in France, which was D Day, or maybe the invasion of Southern France.

The "real" storyline was quite good though.

Yes it was.

The storytelling was excellent.

Occhi