What: Action reaction shot in the paleman scene

When Ofelia proceeds through her second challenge, she disobeys and eats the food causing the paleman to wake up and start chasing her. The paleman is powerful but slow, someone that Ofelia could easily overpower. However, part of the reason why there is still tension despite this is because of the action reaction shots when Ofelia is running away.

The action reaction shot links to the action reaction shot’s at the end of the movie when Ofelia is running away from Vidal, who is also powerful but slower than Ofelia. Vidal is linked to the paleman in several different ways throughout the movie and the action reaction shot with Ofelia is one of them.

The action reaction shots partly showed how Ofelia was in danger after disobeying (disobeying and obedience is a theme); and as the paleman and obeying are linked to fascism and Vidal, some audiences may think that the editing is linked into this political context. That going against fascism can be dangerous, however as the film also portrays, is the right moral thing to do. This links in to the fact that the film was set after the Spanish Civil War (1936 – 1939). The film often links fascism to obeying without questioning and how this can be morally incorrect, so disobeying like Ofelia is praised, and therefore why disobeying is what made her succeed in her tasks. Using a child could show how impressionable a young child can be to these things, but how they can change for the better and lead to a better future.

The action reaction shots also allows for different sounds to be used, and therefore for the audience to feel a certain way. When we see Ofelia running away we hear her breathing loudly meaning we can hear her panic as well as see it, this builds up the tension and the audiences concern for Ofelia. When it cuts back to the paleman, we hear animal noises suggesting that the paleman is animal like and possibly savage. We also hear the cracking noises that link him to the faun, a reason why some viewers might believe that they are actually the same person.

The action reaction shot also links into to the parallel action of Ofelia running from the paleman to the exit and the timer, which is very close to having run out of time, seemingly trapping her there with the paleman who we know from the mise en scene to be dangerous. This is another way of building tension, as we not only see Ofelia’s concern and panic, but as an audience, adding time pressure always increases the tension, especially when you come to care for the character involved which the majority of the audience would have done with Ofelia. This links into the theme of time and morality which is commonly represented with Vidal and his fathers watch, some audiences might take the meaning to be that it shows the fragility of life and how it will come to an end; which can be linked to the Spanish Civil War again where around 500,000 people died.