Pan's Labyrinth

Pan’s Labyrinth is dominated by an ensemble of powerful actors playing roles that seem tailored to them. Prefaced by a short children’s story the movie initially focuses exclusively on Ofelia but quickly widens it’s scope to encompass the conflict between the rebel and fascist forces taking place concurrently. Not only did the two narrative’s effectively avoid distracting from each other, it is the interplay between two very different extreme’s of story, the fairy tale and the rebellion, that combine to amplify the viewer’s investment in the film. Being immersed in what seems like a child’s fairy tale and then being ambushed by the brutalities of the Franco army serves to sharpen the modern viewer’s dulled ability to feel horror.
Benicio Del Toro created a movie with particularly striking aesthetics in every regard, and his subtle manipulation of light is an especially powerful element of an already very well developed mise-en-scene. One of the most interesting subjects of manipulation was the forest. The set was rich and beautiful enough that after all the treatment given it the forest nearly qualifies as a character of it’s own. It is not an active character, but it has just as much impact on the quality of the movie as any of the actors. When meant to emote off sadness the trees are dull and monochromatic, the light is grey and the rain is falling. When joyous the landscape assumes the aspect of the perfect summer day, with wind you can nearly feel through the screen and nature bathed in golden light. The mise-en-scene is of much more importance in a faery tale inspired film, expressing the absolute extremes of good and evil that such stories require, and the forest serves it’s role magnificently.
Two of Pan’s Labyrinth most striking features are the character and costume design. Each actor seems to fit their role perfectly, and a large part of that is established through their outfits, and through their entire design in the case of the supernatural characters. The faun’s design in particular I thought was notable. It manages to be both affectionate and terrifying without obvious changes in form. Made up of what seem to be hunks of earth and roots entwined and enmeshed throughout it’s body, crowned by a face that could be made up of bone for all the colour and texture it possesses, it could easily be an unvaryingly terrifying presence, yet it manages to successfully straddle the line between the uncanny valley and an empathiable human physique. It’s more difficult to comment on the non-CGI altered actor’s costumes, but they seem totally authentic and match the personality of the character’s they adorn.
It is unclear as to whether or not the magic and fantastic creatures Ofelia encounters during the movie are products of her imagination or real, but it does seem like they were more her escapist fantasy than anything else. It is made painfully clear throughout the film that she wants to be elsewhere, and every magical event could be explained through quite probable non magical logic. The lack of evidence to the contrary, coupled with the generally sad tones of the film are enough to push me towards the notion that none of the fantastic exist outside her head. For me the last nail in the coffin was that the film returned to Ofelia's face, bleeding and bloody, right before she died, after she had imagined herself in the underworld.