Fairy tales always occur in dark and evil times. No story ever begins with the phrase: “While living happily ever after.” The point of a fairy tale is to express hope in a fantastical world that reveals the hope in the real world.[1] So, they begin in darkness and end in light.  Pan's Labyrinth (2006) is a fairy tale—but not the Disney kind. This film draws on a much older tradition; the European stories of the Brothers Grimm and Charles Perrault, who were not afraid of the darkness, but used it to paint beautiful, tragic stories that are still with us today. It's hard to believe that Pan's Labyrinth is already almost ten years old, but maybe that is a testimony to its greatness.

[Note: This review assumes you have already seen the film and are familiar with basic plot details]

Set in the spring of 1944, Pan's Labyrinth takes place in the aftermath of Spain's civil war between the fascist and communist parties. Ofelia is a young girl with a strong imagination struggling to make sense of family trauma and societal violence. The movie begins as Ofelia and her pregnant mother Carmen travel to a remote wooded town to meet her new stepfather, Captain Vidal. There, in a decrepit labyrinth, she encounters a faun who believes she is the lost princess to a forgotten kingdom. Giving her three tasks, the faun promises her immortality if she completes them successfully. The remainder of the film follows Ofelia as she tries to accomplish this herculean mission.

In a recent episode of On Being, Krista Tippett noted that, "Soundtracks, for some of us, become the music of our church." Where churches, temples and mosques function as communal gathering places to reflect and be transformed through encounters with the divine, to those who have ears to hear, the theater is a place where inspired storytelling experiences become vehicles for the Transcendent.