Tone

Pan’s Labyrinth incorporates themes of war, drama and dark fantasy. Primarily focusing on the theme of dark fantasy. This is shown by the overall mood and atmosphere of the film, being set in a dark and gloomy place, with evil characters such as the Captain. The dark tone of the film is also shown by the dark lighting, before Ofelia and her mother get to the Captains place, it appears to be light and as they approach the Captains place, a dark and ominous feeling appears and it becomes dark and mysterious rather than a bright and mysterious situation which would completely change the plot as it focuses on dark fantasy.

Visual Style

In the film, the visual style can be seen in the switch between the fantasy world and the real world, by the use of change in the colour palette. In the fantasy world, Del Toro uses warm hues of red, yellow and brown, whereas in the real world, a blander palette is used with colours such as grey, blue and green which are more natural colours anyway.

Realism

Pan’s Labyrinth is a film that features a lot of aspects of non-realistic things so the realism in the film would be seen in the acting and the real life world rather than the fantasy world that is supposed to be non real because she is meant to be imagining this world. However, through the use of cleverly done make up and costumes in the film, as well as realistic voices from the creatures like the Faun, the fantasy world is shown to blend in slightly with the real world, making it a more smoother transition between the real world and the fantasy.