The Pale Man’s lair. How does mise-en-scene communicate meaning for the audience and reinforce the themes & messages that Guillermo Del Toro is trying to communicate in Pan’s Labyrinth?’
Pan’s Labyrinth by Guillermo Del Toro was written in 2006. Ofelia is significant to this film as the central protagonist, and because she demonstrates a theme of disobedience due to moral conviction and she also is a girl who searches for her true identity by completing faun’s tasks. Del Toro is very clever in the fact that he blends two genres together by using different cultural references to other films such as Alice In wonderland and also the Wizard of oz. This was done to emphasise Del Toro’s different views on fantasy as he did not want to follow Walt Disney’s generic themes.
There are several recurring themes in Pan’s Labyrinth; “Fantasy versus Reality”, “Life and Death”, “Fascism”, “Moving from childhood into adulthood”, “Moral disobedience and rebellion” and “the Christian Church”, which are reinforced in the Mise-en-Scene in the Pale Man’s Lair.
The film is set in the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War, in 1945, however it was released in the year 2006. Pan’s Labyrinth was set when Spain was under Fascist rule, and the Second World War was also still raging.
At the beginning of the scene, still in her bedroom, Ofelia opens the magic book and the reflection of light from it illuminates her face as the pictures begin to form with the instructions of what she must do in the second task, thus showing the appeal of the fantasy world in comparison to the greyness and harshness (literally and figuratively) of the real world.
Ofelia has to use the magic chalk to draw a door to escape from the real world; which is portrayed as dark and gloomy and grey and under fascist rule, into the fantasy world and the lair of the Pale Man, which when she enters through the door she draws, is bathed in a golden glow and light and seems warmer and inviting.
Ofelia is told that she only has the time that it takes for the hourglass to empty of sand to complete the task and get back out of the lair, giving a sense of urgency and pace to the task.
Ofelia walks into the lair which is lined by stone pillars and gruesome pictures on the walls of the pale man devouring and killing young children. The walls are red like blood and the room seems both magnificent, but also foreboding. This perhaps echoes Del Toro’s views and feelings about the Christian Church, and also life under fascist rule which was hard, cruel and brutal.
Ofelia sees in front of her there is a large table groaning with platters piled high with all manner of delicious food, and drinks, and sitting at the far end of the table is the motionless Pale Man; a hideous, monstrous looking creature, covered in saggy pale skin, with holes where the eyes would be and long pointed fingers with black and red tips at the end. His mouth is hanging open and he looks as if he is frozen in time or in a trance.
The Pale man is sitting with a roaring fire behind him, almost like the devil in the fiery flames of hell, another reference to Christian beliefs of Heaven and Hell..
The Pale Man, like Captain Vidal in the real world, is perhaps the magical world’s living embodiment of fascism, brutality and greed. The opulence of the surroundings and excesses of the food on the table mirror the Captain’s life in comparison to the hunger, hardship and rationing the normal people and rebels in the real world were experiencing every day.
Ofelia approaches the Pale Man and notices that on a gold platter, which she picks up, in front of him, there are two eyeballs, which she recognises, grimaces and puts back down.
The camera moves to show that by the side of the Pale Man is a large pile of children’s shoes, the victims he has eaten previously, and this imagery is very reminiscent of the horrors of the children who were killed by the Nazi’s in Hitler’s concentration camps. Del Toro also tweets “the pale man represents all institutional evil feeding on the helpless,” This is another nod to the theme of life and death in the film.
The Pale man literally devours and feasts on children and innocence, just like fascism (and Captain Vidal) kills free will and spirit and joy.
Before going into the lair, Ofelia is told by the Faun that she must not under any circumstances eat anything in there. Ofelia disobeys this instruction; just like Eve did in the Garden of Eden in the Bible, and eats some grapes which awakens the Pale Man, who puts his eyes into holes in his hands and then, like a zombie, stumbles and plods towards her trying to grab her to eat her.
Ofelia is saved by the fairies who distract the Pale Man by flying close to his face, however two of the fairies are eaten by the Pale Man, who bites off their heads in a very graphic way. They also, like Ofelia in the final scene of the film, sacrifice themselves to save her, just as Ofelia sacrifices herself in both protection of her brother and in order to enter the magical world and take up her place by her Mother and Father as the lost Princess Moanna.
Like many fairy tales (for example “Goldilocks and the three Bears” and “The three little Pigs”) there is a recurring theme of threes, there are three fairies, three tasks for Ofelia to complete and three doors to choose from to use the key from the first task and retrieve the dagger.
The third fairy encourages Ofelia to pick the middle door (as indeed the book has shown her), but she instinctively knows that the shabby door, rather than the other two which look nicer, is in fact the one to choose. She shows her own will and strength of character in doing so, and making her own choice against advice, demonstrates that she is becoming an independent young adult and is exercising her own free will, like the Doctor and Mercedes who are helping the Rebels in the woods.
Ofelia sees the final grains of sand running from the top of the hourglass to the bottom, and you can feel the fear and tension as the drumbeat, like a heartbeat gets louder.
As time has expired, the doorway she entered through has closed, and in an attempt to redraw another exit door, the chalk falls and breaks on the floor. The Pale Man has nearly reached Ofelia, who uses the chair to climb onto and redraw a door in the ceiling and manages to escape, just in the nick of time.
She has completed the task and has the dagger, but her disobedience has cost the life of two of the three fairies who were helping her.
When Ofelia is back in her room, it is grey and dark emphasising the contrast once again between the cold harsh reality she is living in, and the fantasy world which affords her the chance of escaping the horrors of the real world and fascism to be reunited with her Parents and take up her true place as Princess Moanna.
Harvard references-
Cinemablography. (n.d.). Pan’s Labyrinth. [online] Available at: http://www.cinemablography.org/pans-labyrinth.html#:~:text=Pan%27s%20Labyrinth%20(2006)%20is%20a [Accessed 24 Sep. 2023].
Empire. (2006). Pan’s Labyrinth. [online] Available at: https://www.empireonline.com/movies/reviews/pan-labyrinth-review/.
I need to work on sticking to the word limit
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