Pan's Labyrinth essay

At the very start of the “Pale Man” scene Ofelia is told to draw a door from a large book resembling that of a fairy-tale book, this links back to the fairy-tale “Alice in Wonderland” and as Ofelia descends into the fantasy world there is an obvious connection with this and how Alice must explore Wonderland. As we see her from within the doorway during a long zoom shot we are reminded how small Ofelia is as she is only a child is and exploring an unknown place, we also get a good look at her surroundings; the red and white checked flooring could use one again link back to “Alice in Wonderland” as before Alice enters the door, however I also see this a game, like chess, between the Evil or blood thirsty, as represented by red, and the innocent, as represented by white. This game would then resemble the fight between Ofelia and Captain Vidal or even more, the fight between Fascist Spain and the innocent lives who were affected by it, since this film was set in 1944 when World War II was happening. The walls are also painted red messily and seem to be distorted in a way which to me makes them look almost like flesh or a body which could represent how the “Pale man” is a killer and feeds on the flesh and blood of the innocent, this then means that he would represent both Captain Vidal and Fascist Spain.

A few seconds later there is a mid-shot of Ofelia sitting in the doorway, this mid-shot shows the contrasting colour schemes that are used in representing the fantasy world and the real world. Here the real world has a cold blue colour scheme contrasting the warm orange colour scheme of the fantasy world, and although these colour schemes remain the same most of the time, there are times where the cold colour scheme is used in the fantasy world, for example when she meets the Faun. This also links to the reappearing theme of disobeying as despite how the fantasy world is shown as warm and comforting by its warm colour tones it disobeys what we expect by turning out to be just as brutal as the real world is portrayed, for example the Pale Man. The camera then tilts down to reveal a sand timer, and thus portraying the theme of time also shown by Captain Vidal’s obsession with his pocket watch. Seconds later we see a mid-shot of Ofelia standing in front of the Pale man who is sitting at head of the table, this once again shows how he represents Captain Vidal as before this we also see Captain Vidal at the head of the table surrounded by plenty of food like the Pale man is. This would also show his status of wealth and how the fascists unfairly treated the common people as this would have been a time of rationing food, yet they ignored this. Seconds after we see an over the shoulder shot of Ofelia looking at the eyes on the plate, the image of eyes is used throughout the film to represent how you can see what is going on during the time of fascist but you can’t talk about what’s happening, the fact that the Pale Man or the representation of Captain Vidal has the eyes in front of him implies that he is in control of what you can or can’t see. We then get shown murals of the Pale Man killing innocent children as the camera pans the ceiling to emphasise how fascism had no issues with killing and destroying innocent lives; even children’s. after this we see a pile of children’s shoes, this not only emphasises how many lives the Pale Man has took, but also represents the lives that were took in Auschwitz as many Jewish children died there to the hands of fascism.

The theme of disobeying appears again when Ofelia is directed to one of the doors by a fairy but chooses to use the key in another. This imagery of a key and lock and closed doors are also used throughout the film to represent how secrets of fascist Spain are locked away, never to be spoken of. After this, when Ofelia turns back towards the table, she once again disobeys the fairies by taking the food she was told not to. As she does this we get a close-up of the grapes she eats, personally I think grapes were specifically used because of they’re purple and red hues as if implying this is a feast of blood. We then see a close-up of the Pale Man with his eyes in, this immediately creates fear as the mise-en-scene, sound, implies the danger as the violins become much more intense and high pitched, making them sound like screaming, this also shows how Ofelia fears that he might see her, as she fears captain Vidal will as well. Later when we see the Pale Man run we also notice how he has no genitalia, this might imply Vidal has no manhood if he doesn’t have a son.

Another scene of importance is the final scene as many themes are used within this scene. At the beginning of this scene we see a mid-shot Ofelia talking to the Faun who tries to convince her to cut the child to become a princess, despite this she doesn’t do so, this conveys the theme of disobeying and the contrast between her and the Spanish Fascists as she stood to save the next generation, thus representing the rebels, whilst the Fascists were brutal and had no issue with killing the innocent, later shown by a two person mid-shot of Captain Vidal pulling a gun on Ofelia. When Vidal walks away he runs into the rebels, shown with a wide shot with them surrounding him, this implies how he has no escape and gives the audience a sense of impending doom, however instead of trying he asks them to tell his son what time he died, this once again conveys the theme of time. I believe that Vidal is obsessed with time to represent how it was believed that Mussolini did, however it could also represent the past, the present, and the future due to his obsession of the past, or more-so the time his father died, and how the rebels tried to save the future generations to try and stop Fascist Spain.

Seconds after this the camera zooms in to a close-up of Ofelia’s hand and the blood dropping from it, this is to emphasise that the blood of the innocent has been spared. Whilst this is happening other mise-en-scene is also included, such as the diegetic sound of Mercedes humming a lullaby to Ofelia, this is bittersweet as the audience is reminded how she is only a child and that Mercedes is trying to comfort her by pretending she is only going to sleep, making the rebels therefore seem more caring. 

As the camera pans around Ofelia’s body we see how the warm tones begin to wash over the cold ones of the real world as she enters the fantasy world. These warm tones are supposed the comfort us as they do to Ofelia as we feel she is home and happy, even emphasised with a close-up of her red shoes to represent Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz and her wish to be home, however this is very bittersweet as seconds later we see close-up of her smiling before dying, and those warm tones return to cold once again. This then conveys how living in Spain during this Fascist time was so painful for Ofelia that she had to make up an entire fantasy world to try and cope with it.