Film Techniques In Pan's Labyrinth

Guillermo Del Toro and Guillermo Navaro didn’t make Pan’s Labyrinth just to be a movie you watch simply for entertainment. They wanted it to make you think and analyze deeper than what you get on the surface. They achieved this in one way by using elements of Mise en Scen, a technique where the way objects or people are placed in a scene to convey certain aspects of the story not explicitly stated. Something you might not pay attention to regularly is the lighting of a movie, but in Pan’s Labyrinth the lighting actually helps to indicates something deeper about what is happening. For instance, many scenes with the rebels or Ofelia, have blue lighting showing that they are basically the heroes. Whereas the scenes with the fascists and captain Vidal are lit with orange or red lights which means they are the evil characters. It’s the same thing when pan goes to the fairy world where the lighting is very

One such object is is Vidal’s watch. Vidal constantly checks his watch throughout the film and he cleans it meticulously which tells us that he is punctual like a fascist would be. Yet it also tells the narrative of Captain Vidal wanting to live and die like his father who was a General and considered a war hero, whilst Vidal is just a Captain. Throughout Ofelia’s quest there are a few objects that hint that the fairy world really does exist, like the book that predicts when Ofelia’s mom is going to have pregnancy complications. Another such an object would be the chalk that Ofelia uses to get into other rooms even when she is completely locked in her room, because at first we would assume it’s her imagination, that it’s not really working, but after she takes her baby brother away from Vidal he actually sees chalk on the wall where her room was. Everything works together to tell the story,