Reviewed by Glen Maw

MICHAEL WINTERBOTTOM and co-director Mat Whitecross’s docudrama, The Road to Guantanamo, is unavoidably political. Rather than being politically didactic, the film shows us how political actions affect real people; its subjects are not the politically powerful, but the politically powerless. It is a film about intolerance, ignorance and fear, but equally about friendship and the endurance of the human spirit. The docudrama genre allows it to have the sobriety of documentary, but the empathy of drama. It is a film about the state of humanity and it deserved to be made – if only because it tells us a story from a perspective that we do not hear in the western media. Political films are often hard to watch because they try so hard to convince us of their truths that they lack an aesthetic component. Fear not, The Road to Guantanamo is innovatively shot and beautifully constructed.

Reviewed by Nicholas Butler

GUILLERMO DEL TORO’s Pan’s Labyrinth follows his earlier The Devil’s Backbone, also set during the Spanish civil war. The common thread that runs through both films is of fantasy placed within the grimness of a twentieth century war. It is a war that many people from outside Spain may know little about it – perhaps simply because it doesn’t have the same currency as Vietnam or WWII. In the case of Pan’s Labyrinth this is a refreshing change for the viewer who sees a sinister Spanish officer in place of the usual suspects. More romantic and accomplished than The Devil’s Backbone, del Toro mixes realism and fantasy in the parable of a young girl, Ofelia, who purveys a wonderful imaginary world as she is lead into zones such as a labyrinth where she meets a faun Pan. Pan is somewhat ambiguous in his intentions, as he seduces her to partake in various tasks, whereas some other creatures are obviously more sinister. Ofelia has to contend with a duality of challenges provided by fairytale creatures and of real life – such as her evil stepfather who is an army officer.