Though the film seems most obviously about a child's nightmare in an unrelenting world of pain, violence, and death, Pan's Labarinth joined realism and fantasy through cinematogrsphy. One aspect that made this film different was that one side of the story, the realism, was violent, fierce, and forceful, while the other followed the main protagonist through her mystical quest to become queen of a distant world. With the use of cinematography in Pan's Labrinth, through dolly shots, over the shoulder shots and pans it connects the fantasy with the reality. Ofelia, enters the fantasy relm where the thin, pale man lives. She must retreave the daggar from one of the three locked compartments in the wall. She is introduced as a camera is following her through the use of a dolly shot the audience is seeing what Ofelia sees, the table displayed with lavish foods, in a time when food in reality is being rationed, so as the camera is following her it creates this sense of forbidden atmosphere, The thin man is at the head of the table as though he were guarding it. Ofelia knows she must not eat but through this technique, tension arises because the audience knows that she might not be able to resist.
More tension and anxiety is generated when Ofelia is face to face with this grotesque creature. With the use of this over the shoulder shot of Ofelia looking at the thin man, because she is out of focus the audience can observe the crese and folds that the pale man has, but they cannot see his hands or his lower body therefore building to the suspense.
As the camera pans out and above Ofelia head she realizes just what this creature does to small children. This slow pan action increases the suspension because it isn't until it comes all the way down and to the floor that the audience notices the piles of children shoes and Ofelia in the backgroung perhaps foreshadowing her not so distant future.
Through the use of dolly shots, over the shoulder shots and pans, Pan's Labrinth was able to bridge fantasy and reality through the eyes of a little girl searching for her place in the world.