What: Non-diegetic sound in the paleman scene

The paleman is presented with many loud non-diegetic noises. When he first wakes up after Ofelia eats the food, there are loud bangs to match how his hands are starting to stiffly move. When he holds his hand up to see Ofelia, we hear strained animal noises, suggesting that the paleman is animal like which matches his cracking and strained breathing. This make him more scary to the audience and therefore builds tension, it might make up for the fact he’s so slow. If we link the paleman back to Vidal, we could suggest that the strained noises therefore can be related to him also, maybe representing how Vidal himself is a broken man or go further and suggest that Vidal’s fascism is represented as they treated people like animals during the war. There are also wind noises associated with the paleman, when Ofelia first notices him and when he lifts his hand up to see her, the link back to a force in nature could suggest he’s powerful, which could also link back to Vidal.

When we see the horrific images of the dying children on the wall, there is the non-diegetic sound of babies screaming, meaning the audience’s response is to feel disgusted, sad, and worry for Ofelia as we know the paleman is evil, and that if she isn’t the lost princess he will catch her. The images on the wall are a direct link to Goya, Saturn eating his son.

There are exaggerated non-diegetic sounds such as the key that Ofelia uses. When she gets her key out, it makes a magical, shiny noise which adds to the theme of fantasy and the fact that this is part a fairy-tale film. The dagger also has an exaggerated non-diegetic sound, when Ofelia runs her hand along the blade, it makes a high pitched, short, shiny noise. This also adds to the element of a fairy-tale but also shows how sharp the blade is, which is important to know because the blade is used later in the film.

The paleman’s eyes have a sound when Ofelia lifts them up on a plate, they have a gross, quieter sound that adds to the disturbance of the scene. Del Toro said that the reality world as just as dangerous as the real world, and the paleman is one of the reasons why that is true. The eye’s making sound emphasises it because it’s disturbing and gross.

The non-diegetic drumming in the background could mimic her heartbeat as she would be afraid and it’s something commonly done in films to build tension. When Ofelia is running, the brass instruments in the music play notes that increase in pitch causing tension to be built in the audience. The music stops immediately when Ofelia shuts the hatch, creating the barrier between the two worlds and putting an end to the tension. Plus, as Ofelia, a child, was able to escape something so tense and dangerous, it adds to the film’s idea that children can be treated like adults and shouldn’t be spoken down to. Hence why at the end of the movie, Ofelia isn’t greeted like a child in the fantasy world by her parents but instead like an adult and is give her throne.