Pan's Labyrinth picks up scraps and notions from scattered fairy tales—fear of sexual maturity, thirst for rules and the righteous urge to subvert them, doubtful reconciliation with death—and weaves them into an original fantasy of furious power. After suffering through the many "fractured" adaptations that neuter their source material in the guise of updating it, I was beginning to worry that the primeval richness of fairy tales would have to be reserved for theater. Pan's Labyrinth chalked out an alternate route, and proved me wrong. by Annie Wagner