Oh yes, there are many roses like that, the Fairy thought as she flew toward the window behind which the girl was telling her story. When she slipped into the room, her wings fluttering as softly as Ofelia’s voice, she saw them: the girl and her mother, holding each other against the darkness of the night outside. But the darkness inside the house was far more frightening, and the girl knew that it was fed by the man who’d brought them here. Fool. Vidal walked toward the door, the smoke of his cigarette following him through the sparsely lit room. Vidal didn’t like lights. He liked to see his own darkness. He was almost at the door when Ferreira once again raised his annoyingly gentle voice. The magical sequences in the film are often awe-inspiring, but have an unsettling and uncanny quality to them as well. For instance, when Ofelia must go into the tree to retrieve the golden key from the toad's belly, she must climb through mud which is teeming with beetles and insects. Furthermore, when she feeds the magic stones to the toad, its stomach erupts from its mouth in a terrifying and viscerally unsettling display. The fairy tale elements of Pan's Labyrinthhave a rather disturbing quality; they are not the charming images of Walt Disney, but the eruptive and unsettling images of more classical mythology and fables.

Mercedes was standing behind her. The shawl draped across her shoulders looked as if she had woven it from woolen leaves. If she was an enchantress, she was a beautiful one, not old and withered as they mostly looked in Ofelia’s books. But she knew from the tales that enchantresses often didn’t wear their true faces. We see Captain Vidal, Carmen’s new husband, waiting for them at his residence, annoyed that they are fifteen minutes late. He greets Carmen and touches her belly, before inviting her to sit in a wheelchair, in spite of her insistence that she can walk. Ofelia gets out of the car and greets Vidal with the wrong hand. He notes this and calls to Mercedes, a servant, telling her to bring the luggage in. Then he left with Mercedes, and Ofelia was alone for the first time with her mother in this old house smelling of cold winters and the sadness of people from ages past. She liked to be alone with her mother. She always had, but then the Wolf had come. The dinner party is beginning at Vidal's, and Ofelia is nowhere to be found. At dinner, Vidal unveils plans to distribute one ration card to each family. "We can't allow anyone to send food to the guerrillas," Vidal says, and pulls out the antibiotics he found at the camp that day. Seeing this, the doctor looks over at Mercedes with alarm, as Vidal makes a speech about the misguided beliefs of the rebels, who insist that everyone is equal. As the words escaped her lips, part of her hoped that her mother was already asleep. But then the answer came—

Must reads

Ofelia descends the stairs into the labyrinth, where the faun approaches her and hands her a piece of chalk to take care of along with the key. "We'll soon be strolling through the seven circular gardens of your palace," he says. Food, medicine, we’ll store it all. Right here.” Vidal pointed at the spot that marked the mill. “We need to force them down from the hills. That way they’ll come to us.” Capitán,” the younger one said as Vidal scrutinized them wordlessly, “this is my father.” He gestured to the older man. “He is an honorable man.” Pan’s Labyrinth: The Labyrinth of the Faun is an elegiac love letter to fairy tales and a worthy companion piece that also stands strongly on its own. The novel is beautiful, poetic, and mournful in its pleas to the reader to fight for what is good and right and to open their eyes to the world around them…not just the world we’re used to seeing or the one that can be explained away by practical means, but the real world where fairies fly and witches cast spells and trees whisper stories about long-lost princesses to those who know how to listen.

Dr. Ferreira’s steps were as soft and careful as his voice. He stopped a short distance from the table.Mercedes!” he called out to a woman who was helping the soldiers unload the cars. “Get their luggage!” Then one day Moanna was gone. And Cintolo remembered how often she’d asked him about the sun and the moon and whether he knew what the trees, whose roots laced the ceiling of her bedroom, looked like above the ground. Deeper and deeper into the forest the cars drove, with the girl and the mother and the unborn child. And the creature Ofelia had named a Fairy spread her insect wings, folded her six spindly legs, and followed the caravan.