THE ever-challenging imagination of director Guillermo del Toro is writ large across this enchanting, if macabre, fantasy.

Set in the wake of the Spanish Civil War, young Ofelia is taken to a mountain army camp by her pregnant mother who has remarried the coldly autocratic Capitan Vidal. Ofelia hates her new life, not least because her stepfather is so clearly not interested in her. She retreats into a provate world entered through a mysterious labyrinth she discovers. There she meets fantastic creatures who tell her she is the long-lost princess of their magical kingdom.

The film flits between the mystical and the hyper-real, the fantastic and the brutally violent. It's a marvellous journey.