The
movie opens with a fairy tale. Ofelia (Ivana Baquero), a young girl who
loves to read, lies on the ground, bleeding, while the narration
explains that Princess Moanna of the Underground Realm, curious about
the world above, escapes to the Earth, where the sun blinds her and,
forgetting her past, she weakens and dies. Nonetheless, her father
retains hope that her spirit will eventually return to him.
The story then cuts to post-Civil War Spain in 1944, with Francisco
Franco firmly in power. Ofelia is traveling with her pregnant mother
Carmen (Ariadna Gil) to join Captain Vidal (Sergi López i
Ayats), her new stepfather and father of Carmen's unborn child, at his
post in the mountains where he is rooting out Spanish Maquis
guerillas...
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