Pan's Labyrinth Scene Analysis-The Pale Man Scene and The Dinner Party Scene

In this essay I will be exploring the cinematography and mise en scene of two scenes from the 2006 film, Pan's Labyrinth, by Guillermo del Toro. The two scenes that I will be comparing will be the Pale Man scene, where Ofelia meets the horrifying Pale Man, and the dinner scene, where Captain Vidal hosts a dinner party for his colleagues.

In the Pale Man scene, the cinematography practically mirrors the cinematography in the dinner scene with the Pale Man sitting at the head of the table, which is exactly where Vidal sat in the dinner scene. The mise en scene of the Pale Man scene suggests that the Pale Man is a monster because on the walls of the room there are illustrations of the creature eating and murdering children, also the costume and make-up used to turn Doug Jones into the Pale Man looks physically disgusting and scary. In addition, throughout the scene and whole film there are constant references to circles and eyes, circles being a reference to the type of narrative that the film is because the film starts with the final scene and eventually circles round back to that scene at the end and eyes could be a reference to the fact that in the 1940's people thought that they were constantly being watched, also in the scene there is a pile of old children's shoes which could be a contextual reference to the holocaust because even now there is still a pile of shoes in Auschwitz. Towards the end of the scene, Ofelia eats a grape off of the table and that awakens the Pale Man, which could be a reference to Eve eating the forbidden fruit in the beginning of the Bible
because when Eve eats the fruit her and Adam get exiled and when Ofelia eats the grape she gets pursued by the Pale Man.

In the dinner party scene, in which Captain Vidal and Carmen (Ofelia's mother and Vidal's wife) host a dinner party for Vidal's army colleagues, the cinematography in this scene is the same as in the Pale Man scene and even the food on Vidal's table is similar to the way the food is presented in the Pale Man scene, also the fact that Vidal is sat in the same seat as the Pale Man is a reference to how Ofelia sees him because to her Vidal is like a scary monster (much like how the pale man is portrayed to her), also throughout the dinner party Captain Vidal is always checking his pocket watch, which is a contextual reference to the White Rabbit in Alice in Wonderland, actually there are references to Alice in Wonderland throughout the movie (e.g. when Ofelia goes to kill the toad in the tree her outfit resembles that of what Alice wears whilst in Wonderland). Also, throughout the scenes with Captain Vidal in, there is a constant theme of dominance because when we first meet him her forces Carmen to use a wheelchair and tells Ofelia how to correctly shake someone's hand with respect.  

In conclusion, the mise en scene of the dinner party scene shows that the people that Vidal is hosting are high class because they are all wearing posh clothes and the room is decorated lavishly. In the scene there is a clear divide between the servants and the guests because the guests sit down in the whole scene, whereas, the servants remain standing constantly and they are constantly waiting on each persons hands and feet and whilst Vidal says that the dinner party is to show off the new rations cards, it could also be a ways of showing off his new wife and showing how wealthy he is by the fact he has a whole team of servants. Also, in the dinner party scene Vidal stands up to maybe visual make himself seem better or more powerful than everyone else at the table which correlates to the Pale Man scene because when the creature stands to kill Ofelia he is visually taller than her, which is showing how powerful her is.