A gothic fairy tale set against the postwar repression of Franco's Spain.

This film was previously recommended here at MemeStreams [script] during its theatrical release. MemeStreams was hardly alone in giving the film, now available on DVD, effusive praise:

a haunting mixture of horror, history and fantasy that works simultaneously on every level ... a brilliant work of the imagination ... utterly unforgettable ... visually stunning ... intense, searing, beautiful, terrifying ... marvelous, rich, daring ... transcendent ... a tour de force of cautionary zeal, humanism and magic ... [it goes on and on.]

Anthony Lane concluded:

It is, I suspect, a film to return to, like a country waiting to be explored: a maze of dead ends and new life.

Have you returned yet?