Pan's Labyrinth Analysis Essay Example

The Movie Pan’s Labyrinth was filled with symbolism. It seemed that every scene throughout the movie was trying to tell you something or tying in with something else. You could not help but notice all the different compositional modes of filmmaking. Sound for example tremendously added to the film. Although there were subtitles, after awhile you could almost not read them and just listen to the sounds and get a good idea about the tone it was trying to set. In fact, you could probably have even closed your eyes and not even watched and still been able to pick up on the sound effects and background music, which went perfectly with what was going on in the plot.

The film opened up with Princess Ofelia’s deep heavy breathing. When the scene shifts to Ofelia and her Mother in the forest you hear for the first time eerie music that is repeated throughout the movie. Throughout the movie, the music continuously shifts between the magical fairytale music (such as when Ofelia sees the fairy) to a darker mysterious music symbolizing that the scene is going to change, or something is about to happen. We also continue to hear the pocket watch of the Captain which is explained by Kim Edwards as his “ beloved pocket watch and his desire for order, precision and unfailing obedience” (142). The Captain is a very scary character and I found him to be more of a monster than anything else in the film. You can sense through the symbolism that they are portraying him as a bad man. I know it is obvious that he is a bad guy just because of his actions, but even before he kills the rabbit hunter, you know he doesn’t have the most innocent of intentions. The low camera angle where you are looking up at him makes him seem powerful. When he was talking with another person the camera would switch back and forth from low (while looking up at him) and switch to high as it was looking down at the less powerful person.

Different camera angle and scene colors work well together throughout