The movie could be classified as a 'modern faery tale' (not 'fairy tale'); it is dark and cruel and melds old fashioned faery-tale imagery and old-fashioned cruelty with modernity (1944 modernity). It is in the modern world where the cruelty comes and it is the faery world that is a relief from it.
So that's a little realistic, I suppose, and what causes me to question even calling it a 'faery tale'. But it is vague, and that is my favorite aspect of this movie. Del Torro skillfully weaves Ofilia's imagination with the world that everyone else sees. It keeps you questioning whether what she sees is real real kind of like Calvin and Hobbes.
In production values, it is a great movie. I am not sure how they got some of the effects that they achieved in the movie, other than guessing they used computer graphics. The music is beautiful and chilling and fits the film impressively well. It is very popular and few people give it a bad rating, but I would cite a grievance with the black and white portrayal of good and evil which is characteristic of Hollywood. The movie successfully had me talking to the characters, but it was in frustration.
It was a good movie, but not my type of movie. Set in the Spanish Civil War, it very aptly is depressing.
Analysis (with spoilers):
The two best examples of this are when Ofilia's root soaking in milk apparently helps her mother get better (it baffles the physician), it's burning causes her mother pain; and when she's able to get into Captain Vidal's locked room. Everything else, including how she evades Vidal in the labyrinth, is more easily explained away. It is a pity that the tagline was "what happens when make-believe believes it's real?", as that somewhat undermines this quality.
It may have been appropriate, given the 'faery-tale' nature of the film, but I was disappointed when Ofilia ate the grapes during her second test. Why does everyone who is ever given that test fail it?
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