Product Description

Sountrack to director Guillermo del Toro's 2006 horror/fantasy film starring Ivana Baquero.

Track Listing

1. Long, Long Time Ago
2. The Labyrinth
3. Rose, Dragon
4. The Fairy and the Labyrinth
5. Three Trials
6. The Moribund Tree and the Toad
7. Guerrilleros
8. A Book of Blood
9. Mercedes Lullaby
10. The Refuge
11. Not Human
12. The River
13. A Tale
14. Deep Forest
15. Vals of the Mandrake
16. The Funeral
17. Mercedes
18. Pan and the Full Moon
19. Ofelia
20. A Princess
21. Pan's Labyrinth Lullaby

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #12518 in Music
• Released on: 2006-12-19
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: Soundtrack

Amazon.com
Too many soundtracks feel interchangeable, and rare are the composers who really capture a movie's core. But Javier Navarrete has succeeded in his Oscar-nominated score for Guillermo del Toro's Pan's Labyrinth, a dark fantasy set in 1944 Spain. The first cue, "Long, Long Time Ago," sets the melancholy tone with piano and voice; the spectral piano pops up several more times, and the theme is more fully developed in "Mercedes Lullaby." But it's the second track, the aptly titled "The Labyrinth," that really gives the listener insight into the movie's tenebrous universe. While Navarrete can certainly do short, intimate pieces dotted with telling arrangements (like the few trumpet notes adding a subtle Spanish flavor to "Rose, Dragon"), he excels on the longer tracks, such as "Not Human," which goes through a succession of moods, each one increasingly scary, without ever going overboard into cheap, demonstrative effects. Navarrete has already had a long career as a film scorer in Spain, and this won't be the last American audiences hear from him. --Elisabeth Vincentelli

Customer Reviews

Haunting and magical
I wil admit that I am an avid purchaser of movie scores/soundtracks so I don't know how objective this review can be, but I will say that for people who buy soundtracks and listen to them regularly, this one is extremely well orchestrated and choreographed. It is definitely in the league of film soundtracks like Gladiator and House of Flying Daggers, two other great scores.

My litmus test with soundtracks is if they survive a good listening experience on their own as either classical pieces or showtune type songs and this one does it better than most.

Haunting, epic soundtrack
Not having seen "Pan's Labyrinth" yet, I can only imagine how it can be, after having listened to the soundtrack a few times. Spanish-born Javier Navarrete adds music to Guillermo del Toro's most recent production, in a style the meets halfway between the works of Howard Shore in "Lord Of The Rings" and Alberto Iglesias in any of the scores he composed to go with Almodovar's movies. The result is a haunting, epic sound that goes perfectly with the dark feel of the movie (judging from its trailer). Since I got it, it's been playing non-stop on my iTunes.

The Perfect Lullaby
In the liner notes to this soundtrack, Mr. del Toro describes how the film itself is a bedtime story and how it required a lullaby to carry the tale from start to finish. Javier Navarrete's score nailed it. The film is breathtakingly beautiful with an unforgettable story filled with eye candy start to finish, but del Toro was correct, the soundtrack was the glue that made this film seamless. I found despite all the shockingly graphic and beautiful imagery in the film, it was the soundtrack that was haunting me, (that and the pale man scene *shiver*). No surprises here folks, no bonus material or cheesy love song vocal sung by one of the myriad of american pop singers that soundtracks love to include for a selling point, just a chillingly beautiful orchestral score from start to finish.