Taken from my post on another board (but I wanna discuss it here!): (Thanks, Steve!!)
OK so I finally watched it this evening and it is definitely one of Guillermo Del Toro's best films -- if you enjoyed this one, I would recommend also renting his "The Devil's Backbone" (which explores similar themes, but more along the lines of a ghost story than of a fantasy).
Pan's Labyrinth was just fantastic, and NOT for the faint of heart. This is a brutal movie in the "real life" elements-- and the fantasy elements are incredibly dark as well. No cutesy characters anywhere, so don't go in expecting any... And definitely do not take your children to see this movie I mean, I've seen a lot worse gore and violence-wise, but it's not a kid's movie at all.
The title is odd, considering the literal spanish translation of El Laberinto del Fauno should be "The Faun's Labyrinth".... there's a faun, but his name isn't Pan. I'm wondering why they did that....
Anyway, what I really liked was
Spoiler:
the ending of the film - how it was left rather ambiguous whether she had imagined the whole fantasy world or not (though, of course, "It was real" and "it was imaginary" are NOT the only two options!!!).
Guillermo Del Toro himself interprets the film as being all real -- I'm not going to go into the whole thing here, but the best director's interview I have read on the subject is at
http://www.twitchfilm.net/archives/008507.html . The director left three little "clues" to let you know that HE thinks the fantasy world is all real (read the interview), but it can be interpreted another way. That's the beauty of this film -- it is so multilayered that you can interpret the symbolism of the characters and the fantasy world for yourself.
There are a lot of idiots on the IMDB board that are talking about... "well, if the director thinks it's real, it's real!!! End of story!!" Sorry, but that is total crap. If you can back up what you say, then the director's intent, while interesting from a filmmaking standpoint, has very little or nothing to do with whether an interpretation is "correct".
Certainly, asking whether it was real or imagined, or some of the fantasy was real, and some imagined, or whether it was all imagined (even the "war" parts), etc. etc. are all valid explorations and can lead to wildly varying, equally valid interpretations.
One thing that had me puzzled until this morning is the question of the key going into a lock that's different than the one the fairies pointed out (in the room with the Pale Man monster). If you're of the interpretation that the fantasy world was real, I think that the "test" in that room was not necessarily to retrieve the object, but to see if she'd simply follow blind faith instead of going by her own instincts. In that respect... she "passed" the second of three tests. She had to come into the third test in a mental state of desperation, which is why the faun disappeared on her after the second test. The fairies that got eaten, as immortal beings (like Ofelia/The Princess) show up in the end, after Ofelia's immortal soul passes the third test and leaves her body.
I'm still trying to figure out the meaning of that part if you thought it was all in her head -- would the pale man represent her stepfather, perhaps? What was happening in that movie that would "parallel" that event? What does the key, or the key in the different lock show?
^^ If you read the spoiler above, definitely check out that link. But not until you've seen the movie!!!
Anyway, go see it, you'll be thinking about it for a while. One of the few films (like Donnie Darko) that I wanted to watch again immediately after viewing.