I saw this film last night in Madrid--it is all this and much more. Del Toro has been working up to this for years. He created a flawless film that functions on so many levels: political, social, humanistic, literary... See it on the big screen--and don't read any other reviews before doing so. Many give too much away.

P.S. Big props to Zacharek for understanding that this film is set many years AFTER the end of the Spanish Civil war (a fact that has escaped most critics). While plans were being set to rebuild the rest of Europe, Spain was left alone: destroyed, tortured, repressed, poor, and hungry...

Surrealism. I like the idea that the Surrealist elements are still there, lurking underground, in the woods, even as the military and fascists are trying to establish a world without them. The whole Pan idea, and the image of a young woman travelling to a distant land, are images repeated throughout the work of Remedios Varo, the Spanish surrealist who fled the fascists into France, and then fled from the Nazis to Mexico. If you've never heard of her, please check her out; her paintings are phenomenal.

I look forward to seeing this movie.

I saw this at a preview screening last night in Sydney (Australia)and this is the best film I have seen all year. Possibly the best film for several years (certainly since I saw Spirited Away). It is a true masterpeice and a true fairytale. Del Toro understands that fantasy is dark and dangerous. I hope he will make many more wonderful films.

An instant masterpiece that will no doubt outlast the test of time. This movie made an indelible impression on me. The visuals, are still stinging my retinas. I will probably see this movie again, to truly see it now that I know the story and will not be distracted by the subtitles.

Ms. Zacharek or whomever patrols these letters, please feel free to edit this letter in you feel it gives anything away of the content of the movie, but I did feel the need to add to your advice regarding the child appropriateness of this movie. It is beautiful and fanciful, and the heroine is indeed a young girl. That said, while the marketing of this movie has made it out to be Au Revoir Les Enfants meets Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, the character of the Captain is one of the most gruesomely evil characters in movie history. He ranks right up there with Ralph Fiennes in Schindlers List. Very early in the movie, his henchmen bring him two peasants suspected of being spies, one of whom he dispatches in a very personal, brutal, bloody fashion, and Del Toro spares us no visceral detail in the resulting blood covered disfigurement of the peasant in question. That scene is a harbinger of others to come.

I loved the movie, and Zacharek is right to point out that this is closer to a genuine Brothers Grimm fairy tale than any of the modern Disney retellings, but to say that this film is violent is not doing it service... It is at many times gruesome.

sucked. very long and boring. the fantasy parts are less than a quarter of the film. why this is getting such raves is beyond me.

I just wanted the reviewer to know that her write up was boring as it rehashed pop lit cliches that have been circulating for at least a few decades. She sounds like a school marm. It hurt my head to read so I just skimmed it.

It is a fairy, not a little green insect which turns into a man/