One of the main things I noticed about the film was the use of colour. Del Toro often uses colour to tell a story and he defiantly did so in Pan’s Labyrinth. The ‘reality’ world is largely made from blues and greens making it cold an uninviting. For example, the lighting is often blue, such as when Ofelia gets into bed with her mother. The mise en scene is also what makes this blue and green common; the costume design is a key element when it comes to colour telling the story. Ofelia wears a green dress when in ‘reality’, she physically takes it off before entering the tree. To contrast, when she is reborn at the end of the movie into the magical world, she is wearing gold and red which matches the colour scheme for that world throughout the film. Things like Ofelia’s red shoes and the close up of them could be a link to ‘The Wizard of Oz’ as Dorothy’s red shoes. The gold and red colours are more inviting and are internal colours which matches the frequent reproductive system imagery.

The fallopian tubes are an image that frequent occurs during the movie. This links with Ofelia’s desire to be close to her mother again after the war had affected her life. Del Toro wanted to explore the effect that war had on children, it’s part of the theme and binary oppositions brutality vs innocence. The war took her dad and then her mum re-married to Vidal who was part of the war leaving Ofelia in a situation and place she didn’t want to be in. The internal colours of the magical world and the tree being in the shape of fallopian tubes (mise en scene) therefore makes it a metaphor when Ofelia climbs into the tree (wants to be close to her mother again) and means that at the end of the movie she is reborn. This added to the sympathy that I already felt for Ofelia. There were other fallopian tube symbols in the movie such as in Ofelia’s book, the fauns antlers and a picture of the pale faced man in Ofelia’s book forms the shape of fallopian tubes.

I tend to think Del Toro puts masses of detail into his films regarding recurring symbols. In this movie time and hands were repeated many times but one that stuck out to me was the use of words. Ofelia’s mother tells her to call Vidal her father and that it is just a word, suggesting there was no meaning behind it. Plus, the doctor gave the speech about obeying just because people were told to which had a connection to the use of words. As well as this, the lullaby that Mercedes sings Ofelia which becomes a frequent melody throughout the film is wordless. I think Del Toro is trying to suggest that people other than Vidal use actions to express emotions whereas Vidal will use words which can be hollow, and that even if he does use actions he’s often just obeying because he’s told to.  He’s cruel and insincere, which we can tell from his actions as well.

Time was also mentioned and hinted at many times, especially with Vidal. His father smashed his watch so that he knew what time he had died, he asked Mercedes for his son to know the same. As well as this, he frequently checks his watch (a prop which is part of mise en scene) and we get frequent close ups of the watch because of this as well as being able to hear it tick, I think the first words we hear him say are stating that Ofelia and her mother are late. This could link to Ofelia’s story that she tells her brother about the flower that grants immortality, and how there were poisons thorns that guarded it, but all people spoke about was how dangerous it was and never the reward. It cuts to Vidal during this scene. I think Vidal is a contrast to the story, that it suggests that he believes he is ‘immortal’ because he thinks he’s better than everyone else, such as he believed he could defeat the rebels. His constant checking of time supports this as it could be a hint to how short life is, even for Vidal who seems to feel indestructible. It’s possible that the thorns in the story for Vidal were his actions that were cruel and evil, causing his own downfall and un-deservingness of immortality.

The violence in the film was significant in terms of characters and who they are. Vidal, was cruel and murdered without a thought. Ofelia, was passive even when faced with the pale faced man and had the dagger (mise en scene – prop). Mercedes was brutal but did it for her safety. I think Del Toro often uses violence to explore characters, I noticed similar scenarios in films like ‘The Shape of Water’ and ‘The Devils Back Bone’ (which is actually a sister movie to Pans Labyrinth).