Ali Hyder

3/23/2015
CINE 1200
Pans Labyrinth
Resistance to Oppression

Pans Labyrinth, directed by Guillermo del Toro is a dark Spanish fantasy film about a young girl
after the Spanish Civil War where the Francos fascists are finishing off the remaining republican forces
hiding in the forests. In this film, the director uses montage and mise-en-scene to portray certain themes
and emotions throughout the movie. Every camera movement and cut he chooses to make, changes the
meaning behind the movie to be something else. The film Pans Labyrinth shows to us through the use of
color themes, transitions, and mise-en-scene that true freedom can only come through disobedience to
oppressors.
The use of color in this film was extremely important in differentiating between the two worlds
we were experiencing. As del Toro explained in the commentary, color gives emotion, shape, and story.
Del Toro carefully, filtered different colors into different scenes to explain the story. At the beginning of
the movie, the so called real world was dark and cold. The way this was portrayed was with a filter on
the lens that showed only grays, blues, and greens. This gave a cold steely feeling as if that world was
emotionless and dead. This color scheme made the viewer feel nude and sad which was exactly what del
Toro wanted. On the other hand, the so called fantasy world that Ofelia kept going into, was portrayed
with a completely different color scheme. He used warm fiery colors like gold, red, orange, yellow,
brown, and scarlet. This new set of colors gave a completely different vibe to the viewers. These colors
were warm and comforting as if there was love and life in that world unlike the other real world. Del
Toro carefully crafted each scene so that when they were in there respected worlds, only those colors were
filtered. As the progressed, however, the colors started seeping in to the other worlds. To enlighten us on
his choice to do this, del Toro explained that these two worlds were running parallel to each other and as
the story went along and Ofelia continued to reach the fantasy world, these two worlds starting coming

together. At the end of the movie, when Captain Vidal enters the labyrinth, you can clearly see this
occurring. In the foreground, you see Vidal in the forest with the labyrinth in front of him in a dark cold
blue color, whilst in the background you see the fire erupting from the fighting happening at the mill
which is in a bright orange, red, and yellow color. Only in a few scenes in the movie do these colors mix
and by no means was this an accident. It was meant to show the clash of both worlds and how only when
people started disobeying Captain Vidal, did these two worlds, one representing oppression and the other
freedom, start heading on a collision course.
More than the color schemes, the transitions throughout the movie showed to us the difference
between the two worlds and how different in nature they truly were. The film beings at the end of the film
where Ofelia is dying in the labyrinth with the blood running down her face. At this point, you see the
blood run back into her nose, and the camera panned in to her eyes where it transitioned to the story of the
princess leaving the fantasy world. This transition is very important for a multiple of reasons. First of
all, it shows the difference between the two worlds as the director wanted to show it. Although, the
fantasy world here is shows in a cold color scheme, you can see that the real world has many straight
jagged lines while the fantasy world has many curved and organic lines. Secondly, this transition shows
that Ofelia hasnt truly died; rather she gave birth to something better, something she wanted to be. This
message was interpreted by how the blood runs back into her nose rather than pouring out like it normally
would. The second important transition shows in the movie, was directly after this first scene. In this
transition you see a little girl running up the stairs out of the hole into the bright light of the real world
where a transition occurs showing us a circular hole in a destroyed wall in war stricken Spain. This was a
beautiful transition where del Toro perfectly matches the spiraling pit that the girl is running up from to
the hole in the wall. This transition tells us that there was another change in worlds in a simplistic way.
The last crucial transition is the transition through the mothers belly when Ofelia is speaking the baby in
her mothers womb. Here del Toro makes a beautiful transition from the real world into the fantasy world
and back to the real world. While Ofelia is speaking to the baby, del Toro makes a vertical wipe into the

womb of the mother where he shows the fetus baby. From here he has a horizontal wipe to the fantasy
world that Ofelia is explaining in her fairy tale. From here, del Toro follows a fairy in that story as it flies
into Ofelias window. This transition was a fantastical way to move between universes. He presents both
worlds in a way that makes you feel as both worlds existed together in one world.
Every time Guillermo del Toro makes a transition there is a clear difference between how the
world is presented. The real world is shown as dark cold place not only by which colors are used but also
by the set design and other aspects of mise-en-scene. In many scenes throughout the film, references are
made to things in the real world that have a direct correlation to things occurring in the fantasy world.
There are a few things that have significance in both worlds, like the knife, key, and dining table are a few
examples. In the real world, Mercedes had a knife that kept showing up and ended up being her salvation
at the hands of Vidal. In the fantasy world, Ofelia had to get a knife from the monster with eyes in his
hands for the faun. There was a key that the rebels needed to get into the storage room and then there was
a key Ofelia had to get from the frog to get the knife. And finally there was the dining table that the
director chose to use both in the scene where Vidal had dinner with everyone and the scene with the handeye monster where he had a feast that no one could eat from. All these small choices that del Toro made,
were done to bring these two world closer together and to start proving that the fantasy world wasnt a
fantasy anymore and that it was slowly becoming more and more of a reality and that only through
disobedience to the oppressor, Vidal, could you possibly imagine to reach this better, fantastical world.
In Conclusion, the director of Pans Labyrinth, Guillermo del Toro, used cinematography
techniques to portray messages beyond the obvious. He used methods such as color filters, editing
transitions, and setting and object placement to portray a deeper meaning to the film. This theme he
wanted you to understand truly is an important message that is to never allow the killing of innocence. No
matter what the cost, even that of death, the innocent must be protected. Disobedience to the oppressors is
the only way to reach freedom, and it is the only way for justice to be served. Those people who oppress
the innocent and kill women and children have no place in a warm and loving world like Ofelias.