Pan’s Labyrinth is set in Spain, during 1944 at the time of the Resistance. The setting takes place at a house, known in the movie as a mill, surrounded by the forest. The movie shows two worlds; the real world and the fairy tale world of a little girl, Ofelia. The music in this movie is mesmerizing, as it comes around mainly when Ofelia is present and has to do a task assigned to her that the book reveals that is given to her by the faun, known as Pan.
Ofelia is the developing character, because the movie surrounds her in the world of fantasy. Ofelia is traveling with her mother, to go live with her stepfather, when the car has to stop. Ofelia gets out of the car and wanders off, when she come across a stone and picks it up. The stone is a piece of the stone statue, and then Ofelia places it in the statue and a bug appears. The bug later appears in the mother’s room, and reveals that she is a fairy, and there is a close-up of the bug crawling out of the statue. This scene revealed the importance of the fairy as well as the part she plays in the movie.
The Captain is a stock character, because he is portrayed as being mean, even to Ofelia. The only reason Ofelia is there at the mill is to be with her mother, who is pregnant with Ofelia’s brother. In one scene, you can see the Captain’s hand on Carmen’s belly, which is an indirective/subjective point of view. In another scene, there is the Captain with his men questioning an old man and his son about what they are doing out in the woods, which is a good example of arrangement of people and objects. Another type of character in this movie is Pan, the faun, which is a flat-character because he is not human, because he is part of the underworld. He knows that Ofelia is the reincarnated Princess.
There are different types of camera usage from moving to panning and tilting in this movie. The camera is panning as Ofelia runs after the “fairy”, as well as more panning and tilting as she walks into the labyrinth. Another shot shows Ofelia following the fairy into the labyrinth, walking down the stairs and this is a camera angle from above shot.
This movie uses different types of lighting, and the one that stuck out to me is the scene in her mother’s room. The lighting is low key, with blue tones, as well as being gloomy with noises in the room. Also in this scene, there is a subjective point of view, when Ofelia is telling a story to her unborn baby brother, about a rose that grows among thorns.There is also allegory in this movie, which is almost a religious theme, because the movie has a dark side to it, as well as karma. Pan’s Labyrinth is by no means a child’s story; it utilizes the structure of a fairy tale meant for an adult audience. There are so many shoe shots. Contemplate where those shoes go. Into the fig tree, mud, off the path, in the labyrinth, everywhere she should not go. Her shoes always get muddy until she discovers her real place is with her real father and mother on the royal throne. Only then are her shoes clean and pretty. The denouement is when Ofelia returns to her kingdom, after sacrificing her own life. Ofelia’s willingness to spill her own blood, perhaps is the greatest test of worthiness, for that of her baby brothers life and returning to her kingdom as the princess after leaving it that is shown at the beginning of the movie, thus living in a fantasy/fairy-tale and real world.