There is a moment early in Pan’s Labyrinth when a girl walks into the woods with a book under her arm and finds a stone face lying in the dirt. It is missing an eye. She has the eye. It’s a small carved stone she picked up beside the road, and she fits it back into the socket, and the forest seems to take a breath. Twenty years later, that may still be the best introduction to a fairy tale ever put on film, because it tells you everything without saying a word. Something old has been broken here, and this child has been carrying the missing piece.
Continue reading
