Pan's Labyrinth.

Pan's Labyrinth

The opening scene in Guillermo del Toro's 'Pan's Labyrinth' changes the common narrative structure. At first we are immediately given the setting of the film with the time and date of the film. It then has writing giving some more contextual information. The film itself starts with a close up panning shot of a young girl's dying body.  There is a hint that this takes place at the end of the narrative as we see blood going back up into her nose almost as if time is being reversed. The film then cuts to a very long, wide shot of the Underworld. Del Toro has many scenes like these in the openings of his movies showing the realism that he wishes to show in these magical worlds. The world is portrayed as dark and gritty yet well-built. The camera then rises towards a light until it goes above ground showing the real world. The first thing we see is the ruins of an old building. This use of mise-en-scene can convey that the real world, our world, is more destructive than the fictional world that Del Toro has created.

Another instance of the Underworld being a more balanced world can be shown in the scene with the pale man. Ofelia is told by the faun to not eat anything when meeting the pale man. When she does it, she has to face the consequences. Even though her life is in danger, it is portrayed as a lot more fair than events in the real world. There, we see Nazi soldiers brutally murdering innocent people. There is a strong patriarchy in place and Ofelia is mostly powerless. However in the Underworld she has a lot more responsibilities that lie on her shoulders but she is not able to fulfil them due to her childlike curiosity. When she is tempted to eat the grapes we see an over the shoulder shot as she looks behind her at the pale man who is coming in and out of focus. The same shot is shown again when she eats the grapes but this time it completely zooms into him. Sound is key at this point too as we hear every crack in his body as he starts to move.

The mis-en-scene in both of the scenes are very different. The pale man scene in the Underworld, despite being in a world with more stakes, looks a lot brighter than the real world. The colour is more orange which has connotations to joy and warmth. The real world's colour is more blue representing coldness and the distance between Ofelia and the real world.