Stanziliëri

How about starting this entry with a tiny little bit of music? Switch on your speakers, and click play.

I just watched a most wonderful movie: Pan's Labyrinth. Or El Laberinto del Fauno as it is called in Spanish. The movie is written and directed by Guillermo Del Toro, from Mexico, and completely in Spanish.

He managed to create a unique mixture of fairytale and civilian guerilla warfare. The story happens in Spain, 1944. While a freaked out captain tries to quench the rebels in the forests around him, his new wife's daughter (from a man he might or might not have murdered to get her) loses herself in books with fairytales.

Wandering through the forest, she hears things. She sees things. Things... that might be real. To her...? Strange creatures. Old ruins. A hollow tree with inhabitant? And what's this faun's labyrinth business?

The story describes a few days in the lifes of the little girl Ofelia, her new father (the captain), her mother who is struggling to give birth to his son, the doctor, and a maid.

It shows the brutal ruthlessness of some bitter and heartless people in wartime.
It shows the struggle of a mother to let her and her daughter survive at all cost.
It shows the struggle of people who believe in freedom.
It shows the love of people for innocent strangers they never met before.
It shows the magic... the magic everybody hopefully sometimes finds, lest they've not forgotten it from their childhood days....

An enchanting movie. The magic of Alice in Wonderland, mixed with bitterness, horror, sadness and love. The movie ends, like the title of this posting sais, with a happy never after. Is that good? Or is that bad? It's all about which path you choose to follow. Watch the movie, and you'll understand.
Certainly recommended.