This is a dark fairytale about a little girl’s coming-of-age during the Spanish revolution. Ofelia, a young girl who loves fairy tales, is being brought to the country to live with her mother’s new husband, a dark Captain serving with the fascist forces. No sooner is Ofelia in the country, she begins fantasizing she has met a vaguely terrifying faun who sends her on quests.
All of the father’s in this movie are evil or weak: the Captain, the faun (I know this is sort of a metaphoric fatherhood role, but I gasped at one point when an imperiled Ofelia nuzzles with the faun, as any child might with a parent), even early on there is a peasant farmer who watches helplessly as the Captain slaughters his son. I found it creepy how Ofelia’s relationship to the faun sort of mirrored her mother’s relationship to the Captain. On one level it seems perfectly normal for Ofelia to imagine a character as dark as the faun, considering how the Captain eagerly risks Carmen’s life.
Present Tense 