In Del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth, during the paleman sequence, parallel action (parallel editing) is used with the main character Ofelia and with the timer five times. Ofelia has a limited amount of time to complete her third task, otherwise she’ll be trapped with the dangerous paleman, meaning, the audience feels concern for her. The parallel editing of seeing Ofelia and then the timer that is quickly running out of time builds tension, it reminds the audience of the time limit and how she needs to be quick. The first two times this parallel edit happens is once at the beginning when the scene is setting up, to establish the time constraint for the rest of the scene. The second is when Ofelia is using the key to unlock the doors, as a reminder for time ticking down. Both of these times build tension. However, the two next times build tension and bring a strong sense of danger as they happen when Ofelia is running away from the paleman who we know from the mise en scene to be dangerous and evil and so we therefore don’t want Ofelia to be trapped with him. This makes the movie more immersive, as the audience will get lost in the scene to see if Ofelia is okay. The final time the parallel action happens is when the time has run out. We see the timer in the other world not only giving us a sense of worry but also a sense of the two worlds being real and divided.

The idea of time running out links to the theme of morality which was initially introduced with Ofelia’s death at the beginning causing dramatic irony and Vidal’s watch. It reminds the audience of different things, one being that the characters, specifically Ofelia, are mortal and can die causing us to worry and builds tension, especially since we already know that she is going to die. It also reminds the audience that they themselves will run out of time one day, as they are not mortal either. Lastly, it has a contextual link to the Spanish Civil War which lasted from 1936 to 1939 but had long lasting effects. The film was set after the Spanish Civil War, and covers topics such as fascism, morality is one of the themes that link back into this contextual link as over 500,000 people died. The film is portraying the idea of how fragile life can be, and how the effects of war can be catastrophic.

The representation of age is different in this scene compared to others as in the paleman sequence children are presented as naive. Ofelia is running out of time which is emphasised by the parallel action of her and the timer, however, she still goes slowly. Some audience members might find this frustrating, but it could be that Del Toro was trying to present children in a specific way by contrasting how Ofelia, a child, handled the task to how an adult would. However, it is possible that it’s another link to Ofelia not following the general flow and forging her own path away from fascism and Vidal, which is explored a lot throughout the film with the theme of obeying and disobedience.

Del Toro’s aesthetics in this scene are similar to horror, all the film form elements add to this. Specifically, the parallel action giving a sense of strong danger and building tension while a small child is running away from an evil being is very horror like, which is arguably one of the genres of the movies along with others such as fantasy. Del Toro often dabbles in the horror genre, so this is not an unusual decision for him. He also often explores the Gothic genre, which this film also does such as with the exaggerated (foley) wind sound effects which happen throughout the film including in the paleman scene such as when Ofelia notices him. Linking on from this, the scene feels scary and disturbing and the parallel action helps build the scariness.