Have you ever heard a frivolous protester characterize highway speed limits, restaurant smoking restrictions, and the like -- as "fascism"?

Have you ever asked yourself what real fascism would look like, and whether you would enjoy it?

El Labirinto del Fauno is set in 1944 Spain, under Franco's fascist government; it is a movie filled with beautiful, terrifying people and beautiful, terrifying monsters.

Fascism is a surprisingly handsome, masculine social order. The masters are strong and handsome. The servants serve. The scenery is idyllic, the uniforms are elegant, the artifacts are a pleasure to behold. No one objects to fascism, except for a few guerrillas. Del Toro shows the audience why one might enjoy living under fascism, and why perfectly normal, honest, good-hearted people would go to great lengths to avoid confronting fascist governments.

The story opens with a fairy-tale voiced-over visuals of shining, elegant automobiles. The child heroine, Ofelia, who loves fairy tales, takes a moment to appreciate the forest landscape. From the very first choice that Ofelia makes, the viewer will feel a slight sense of unease. Ofelia lacks an appropriate sense of obedience, and her ignorant breaches of good sense put the viewer on edge.

Ofelia has no social standing and very few connections to the adult social order of fascist Spain. She begins to risk everything she has to discover magic. As her confrontation with supernatural terror grows more intense, the external, adult world of fascist Spain is battling rebel guerrillas. The consequences escalate, putting all the characters into ever-graver perils. But Ofelia's ignorant choices fill the viewer with the greatest dread.

This movie is not intended for children below the age of eighteen, since it contains blood, pain, pregnancy, gunshots, anguish, hunger, honor, torture, forbidden fruit, maiming, and nightmarish monstrosities. I think the sort of children who enjoy fairy tales would love this movie.

This movie forces the viewer to consider situations offering escape on one hand and painful duty on the other. It is a little painful to watch these simple, sympathetic characters make the choices that they do. This movie seduces the viewer with beautiful scenes, which are somehow incomplete because they imply horror without confronting it. When the horrors do emerge into full view, the viewer is transfixed. The characters choose to confront fascism -- either by fighting against it or by living it to the fullest. The viewer's resistance to Ofelia's choices makes the final moral statement of the movie extremely poignant.