The sequences of this film is very intriguing, hinting at the cruelty of the civil war and the terror of dictatorship all the time. I have watched this film for three times with a heavy heart, and every time I will sigh. Clearly, the film’s main theme is “a cruel tale of cold reality interlaced with a beautiful little girl’s fantasy.” There is no underground kingdom, no afterlife, no hope of a better life. Ophelia was robbed of her precious life by the horror of the heart and the cruelty of reality.
The tree is dying from a very cunning Angle, one left and one right, like two forces to pull it apart, the left wing coalition and the right fascist regime will break the withered old tree, a symbol of the tear of national ideology and the decline of national strength. Like the battle between the guerrillas and Vidal, the civil war has devastated the country, which is no longer as vibrant as a normal tree, but as dead as a lightning bolt that has split it in two.
Another standout sequence in the film is the magic grass that Phan gave Ophelia, La Mandragora. It does not need Ophelia to pay a huge sacrifice, only need a little ox and a few drops of blood, can help Carmen to breed a new life. He is not aggressive, and in such a depressing film, there is a moment of relief, but only for a few minutes. What happens next is even more brutal. No one is on Ophelia’s side, no one believes him, the herbs are thrown into the furnace, and the mother dies in childbirth. Her father thought nothing of her life and only cared about the boy he was going to have.
This is not so much a dark fairy tale，but as a reflection on the national conditions of Spain at that time. While it’s letting people hit to abandon innocence, it tells people to grow up as well.