Explore how one example of cinematography is used in one sequence from your chosen film.

(I struggled to make ten points on just one example of cinematography so used multiple)

During the funeral scene for Carmen, there is high key lighting which contrasts to the usual low-key lighting of the film. This is unusual for a funeral scene, as they usually have low key lighting to reflect the sadness. However, we know that in Pan’s Labyrinth death is not the end, so Carmen’s death although sad led to something better. A large part of the film is shot with blue lighting. The connotation of blue is coldness and uninviting. The contrast of lighting colour in the doctors death scene which happens close to the funeral scene, with the funeral scene is drastic as when the doctor dies the shot looks blue but the funeral looks as though it has natural lighting. This separates Carmen’s death with the coldness of war and Vidal, again signifying that the film has afterlife.

The camera shots are used both during Carmen’s death scene and the funeral which happens straight after to portray how the characters are feeling. After Carmen has died, we see a close up of Ofelia’s face which highlights her pain and sadness, this contrasts to Vidal as we don’t see a close up reaction from him because he immediately went to see the baby (because he only ever cared for the baby not for Carmen). There’s also a close up of Mercedes before Carmen dies, which shows us that she has blood on her, this shows the audience that Carmen will probably die. As well as this, before the funeral scene we get a long shot of Ofelia with her in the centre emphasising how lonely she is now that her mother has gone, the audience feels empathy for her and possibly worry as we know she is vulnerable against Vidal.

During the funeral scene for Carmen, we see a mid shot of everyone who attended. With this mid-shot, we can see that everyone is grieving apart from Vidal who is paying attention to the baby, the audience is again shows how Captain Vidal didn’t care for Carmen but instead viewed as a baby maker. This links to the representation in the film, at the beginning, women were portrayed as submissive and in need of men’s care, the men in the film, specifically Vidal, agreed with this. Throughout the film, we see how the representation switches as the women (Mercedes) take control and prove people like Vidal who underestimates them wrong.