PAN'S LABYRINTH

PAN'S LABYRINTH

1. MISE-EN-SCENE

   • PROPS
     • The Key, Ofelia's fairy tale book, the sand timer, the watch, three magic stones, book of cross roads, chalk
       • The watch - Vidal's father smashed his watch so he knew the exact moment he died, which in this film Vidal has a watch so passing on the trait
       • Key - represents the key, she gets from the Toad and the store room door key
       • The sand timer - when it runs out the exit closes The book of cross roads - predicts the future
       • The chalk - allows Ofelia to draw the magic doors The magic stones - turn into mugs, fed to the frog then kills it so Ofelia can get the key
   • COSTUME
     • Ofelia - She has her nice green dress which was given to her by her mother. But normally she wear's and is dressed in earthy and dull dresses. Some of the clothes she wears are often similar to her mothers
     • Vidal - He wears his Captain's uniform, which as the film progresses it is a different colour, at the start it is blue, middle it is green and then at the end he is just in a top to show the struggles he has been through along the way
     • Mercedes - She is represented with the costumes being, rugged, dull. She wears lots of brown
   • STAGING
     • Proxemics - Ofelia is always close to her mother than the army. She is mostly shown closer to the Faun than Captain Vidal too, this shows the relationships between them and how she prefers the fantasy world figure of the Faun to her stepfather
   • MAKEUP
     • There also are other elements of makeup used, for example when Vidal holds his dinner party, we see two upper-class women, wearing jewellery and posh clothing which also is combined with makeup to add to their appearance and the way we are shown them as being a different class to the other people in the scene, as an example comparing them to Carmen - the mother
     • Carmen wears makeup when she starts to get ill
       • This represents that she is still trying to live up o Vidal's expectations even though she is ill - this demonstartes how Vidal has more authority and dominance
   • SETTING
     • There are two main settings within this film. One being the real world and the other being the fantasy world. Real world contains such areas like the forest, Vidal's house. Fantasy world contains areas like the tree, the labyrinth

2. CINEMATOGRAPHY

   • Eye level matches for Ofelia showing her relationships with the characters, for example the Faun where as her and Vidal's is from a high angle
   • First time we meet Captain Vidal is shown by his watch which symbolises his father's watch wehm he died - this also suggests his punctilious personality
   • Two shot - Carmen and ofelia to show the mother and daughter relationship
   • We meet the Faun in the Labyrinth as a close up zooming out
   • At the beginning the camera Zooms into Ofelia's eye with a cross dissolve into 'the magical fairy tale kingdom' - blue tint is cold and representative of the other world
     • Suggests that the world we're seeing now (after the zoom transition) is in Ofelia's mind
   • We first see the pale man through a close up - eerie juxtaposition of the eyes in the hands and he then eats two of the cute fairies = horrifying an detestable
   • Gothic production design - ceremonial standing stone - indicates that this film will unleash primal forces that will haunt the present and derangee it - Ofelia gives its eye back and crickets emerge from its stone mouth and later transform into fairies
     • Ofelia's first task with the giant toad that lives under the large tree which is shaped like a womb - the model of the toad is realistic and Del Toro voiced some of the sounds of the toad himself
       • The tree being shaped as a womb represents the life cycle and the theme of reproduction and generations
       • Prosthetics was used with the faun and the pale man and CGI was used in the ending in the underworld

3. SOUND

   • Leitmotif - There is a leitmotif in this film of the lullaby, this is with the character Ofelia which occurs when things happen to her. It is placed at the start of the film when we see ofelia dying and then at the end when she actually dies. Also at other moments like when her brother is born
   • Non diegetic - Narration at the start, telling us about the parallel worlds,it is told in a fairy-tale style voice. This impacts the story by us being aware of the things that could occur in the film and by it being told in this style it gets us as the audience engaged
   • The ‘fairy’ that serves as her guide through the Labyrinth continuously sounds like the insect it originally appears as (its change in shape appears purely a way to reassure Ofelia after scaring her in the dark, for she already knows it’s true nature) and it makes mouse-like sounds when it communicates with the faun, while the faun itself has an overall sound built of the sound of lions and creaking wood beneath its ‘human’ voice

4. EDITING

   • Conventional editing, cross dissolves to and from black showing the link between the real and fantasy world
     • Ofelia in close up lying on her mother's belly, telling us a story to her unborn baby brother and the shot tracks into the womb
   • Real world - is given a blue/green colour to also show the difference and the connotations are to show, cold and bitter environment and that its real by the green connoting the earth which represents the forest and is used in the clothes the real people wear
   • Fantasy world - is given a yellow and golden colour to show the difference between the two world and these colours would represent like heaven and the under world