Pan's Labyrinth

This movie was ridiculous. In the best sense. I've seen this movie a couple of times and this time I was begging to understand every centimeter of it. I've watched it so many times because I love the plot line. I love the fantasy mixed in with the inevitably real. I love the devastation and hope all melded into one. It was so beautiful the way so many things fell apart but came back together in an utterly different but sometimes far brighter way. This time when I saw the movie I was relatively infatuated with two things: the parallels between The Captain and Ofelia and whether or not the fantastical element was real, of just a pigment of Ofelia's imagination. I was rather immersed in the search through out the film for these parallels. They were subtle and I suppose I discovered a few, but in the spirit of not ruining the film, I encourage you to search for any parallels at all between these two vital characters. I was also very involved in my search for truth in the fantasy world of Pan's Labyrinth. To say I now know the answer would be a fallacy, but my search did lead me to deeply study the film. I watched the establishing shot a few times over and I also watched what Guillermo del Toro, the director, had to say about anything relating to this film in hopes of obtaining an answer. I did not. In accordance to my own judgment I decided that all that was not entirely possible was fake. The fantasy was not a reality but rather the result of Ofelia's overactive imagination, an imagination to escape her fate. I could rant on and on about my theories on that, but rather than waste the time I'd simply ask the viewer to hold this question to a high regard and consider it. All in all I was utterly captivated by Pan's Labyrinth and all the rich detail it had to offer.