Few films are either as magical or as enchanting as Guilermo Del Toro’s “Pan’s Labyrinth.” In the same breath, few fairy tales are as perverse, terrifying or as deeply disturbing. This new surrealistic war-torn wonder is an emotionally shattering marvel, a visionary triumph made be a filmmaker at the very top of his game.

Returning to the same Spanish landscape of his 2001 marvel “The Devil’s Backbone,” Del Toro once again follows the mysterious fortunes of a young child as they try to navigate the dangerous waters of a civil war. In this case, that child is Ofelia (Ivana Baquero), newly relocated with her mother Carmen (Adriadna Gil) to the countryside so they can be with her new stepfather Captain Vidal (Sergi López).

Vidal does not care a lick for the little 12-year-old girl, his only concern the life of the hoped-for son his newlywed wife carries within her belly. Otherwise, his focus is on stamping out the rebels hiding within the forest by any means necessary. They are a disease in his mind, a virus infecting his way of life and in desperate need of being eradicated. Manipulation, abuse, torture, genocide, all only usefully awful means to a glorious end in his mind, the destruction of these revolutionaries the best thing he could possibly ever accomplish for his glorious Spain.

With her mother growing ill and her stepfather treating her like a dog, Ofelia retreats more and more inside the elaborate fairy tales she treasures dearly. But when a trip within a crumbling stone labyrinth just on the edge of the forest reveals a world the little girl never expected, the line between fantasy and reality begins to blur. Soon the child finds herself on a quest putting her own life in danger, yet one she also knows could save the life of a brother she as of yet doesn’t even know.

“Pan’s Labyrinth” is as exhilarating as it is mesmerizing. To call Del Toro’s latest a fairy tale for grownups would be too easy, a far too simplistic description for a picture which plumbs such exquisitely realized emotionally layered depths. Much like “The Devil’s Backbone” the filmmaker looks at evil as seen through the eyes of a child, the Spanish Civil War a perfect backdrop to showcase just how far man’s inhumanity to man can really extend.

This time, however, Del Toro uses the framework of a fantasy to magnify just how great this depravity is. Ofelia’s journey, through the looking glass if you will, is no Lewis Carol darkly-twisted yet still sweetly-safe fantasy land. Here giant toads ominously threaten to swallow a child whole while pale men with eyeballs in the palms of their hands sit at bountiful dinner tables ready to strip the bones of any who choose to partake of the meal. Ofelia’s fairy tale is a metaphor commenting on the very real horrors of the day surrounding her, and while it may be populated by fairies and fauns the real danger lies in the hands of the madmen with guns watching the child’s every step.

In a year filled to the brim with magnificent visual achievements “Pan’s Labyrinth” might be the most spectacular of the bunch. From the intricately designed avenues of the labyrinth, to the washed-out disheveled blues and grays of the military encampment, reality and illusion collide producing fantastically splendiferous results. Frequent Del Toro collaborator Guillermo Navarro’s photography is spellbinding, while production designer Eugenio Caballero has crafted a world so textured it is almost impossible not to believe these places and worlds really do in fact exist.

This will undoubtedly be a tough sit for some. The director has created a film full of adult concepts, ideas, emotions and problems yet chooses to look at them through the innocent eyes of a child. Some of what Ofelia does might seem ludicrous, maybe even borderline insane, but for a small girl faced with the extreme inhumanities and terrors surrounding her retreating into a fairy tale world isn’t at all an unreasonable conceit. More, the fact these fantasies are colored by the events taking place around her gives Ofelia an insight into war’s destructive fingerprints impossible to dismiss and more insightful than you’d ever have expected.

Of the actors, López is miraculous here. His is a monstrously terrifying depiction of fascist evil so all-encompassing all the actor has to do is walk in front of the camera to send a chill down your spine. Off all the villains I have seen this year (save maybe Meryl Streep in “The Devil Wears Prada”) he is definitely my favorite, López making Captain Vidal a creature so horrible even the fantasy critters populating Ofelia’s thoughts would run screaming from him if they could.

Collectively, filmmakers Del Toro, Alfonso Cuarón and Alejandro González Iñárritu, the self-described “Tequila Gang,” are having the kind of year many in Hollywood dream about yet seldom achieve. Cuarón’s “Children of Men” is the best film of they year, while Iñárritu’s “Babel” is one of the more topically thought-provoking powerhouses I’m ever going to see. Together this trio has released some of the most urgent, intelligent, entertaining and richly-layered pictures of the 2006, Del Toro’s masterpiece “Pan’s Labyrinth” certainly no exception.

Film Rating: êêêê  (out of 4)