Pan’s Labyrinth

(Guillermo Del Toro, 2007).
Magic realism leavened with moral seriousness, Pan’s Labyrinth belongs with a handful of classic movie fantasies: Cocteau’s Orphée, Charles Laughton’s The Night of the Hunter, Neil Jordan’s The Company of Wolves. Its key precursor, however, may be the greatest of Franco-era Spanish movies, Víctor Erice’s The Spirit of the Beehive. Although utterly different types of filmmaking, each of these is the story of a brave little girl lost in a world of make-believe—at once an intuitive anti-fascist and the innocent victim of a monstrous system.

Thu., Sept. 11, 8 p.m., 2008