Don't read this if you haven't seen the film yet. And this is brief so don't read it as complete as I haven't fully formed all of my arguments, I just want to get it down. But yeah, she died.
It's a great film, but I've been thinking about the imagery, and the symbolism. Ofelia's first discovery of the dual identity with Princess Moanna left her with a sense of pride, and pride is the first of the seven deadly sins. At that point, she was already human. The image in the well was of the faun holding the girl with a baby. Didn't happen: the captain took the baby back. Ofelia failed her promise to trust the faun without asking questions and her promise to her brother that she would take him with her and make him a prince. And all of the other deaths were delusions - the captains desire to pass on the legacy left by his father - denied; the mother's desire to take care of her family - denied (especially with the hints that the captain was the one that caused the death of the tailor); the death of Ofelia was the death of an innocent past. I don't know much about the Spanish Civil war, except for the glorious propaganda of Hemingway and Gramsci, but she represented something other than an innocent child. Maybe the delusion of being able to maintain belief in a dream instead of facing the reality of utter failure. Dunno. Could be.
I will be watching this again. Imagery keeps coming back to me - the editing of the chase through the forest where trees are used to make the captain's troupes jump around in the frame. It was a brilliant way to disturb time and space. I also want to reexamine the train scene where the lights/screens were manipulated to give an otherworldly sense of dusk/dawn. The technical was nicely executed. And this was so much better than Hellboy (not that I didn't like Hellboy, but this was just better.)
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