Pan's Labyrinth

Vidal’s Watch

During the course of the film the viewer begins to notice significance with Captain Vidal’s watch and the way he chooses to live his life. His pocket watch represents “his desire for order, precision and unfailing obedience” (Edwards 142). There are many key scenes in the film that reference his pocket patch in one-way or another. For example, the viewer understands the importance of the watch to Vidal during the scene where they are sitting down to eat at the table. The pocket watch was the only item that his father had left him when he had died, so the watch has sentimental value to him even though it represents the death of his father. Vidal is obsessed with cleaning and maintaining his watch in order to keep it running because the watch also represents his life. For if the watch were to stop working then Vidal’s life would surely also come to an end. This is why at key moments in the film where Vidal’s life is in jeopardy he takes out his watch to make sure it is still running.

Reality vs Ofelia’s Fantasy

There are many instances in the film where what is going on in Ofelia’s fantasy is also occurring in reality. According to Kim Edwards author of Alice’s Little Sister: Exploring Pan’s Labyrinth “the fairytale realm – that submerged sub-text – becomes an insightful commentary on war and the rules of society and gender in the real world” (145). The first instance where we can see the two worlds collide is when Ofelia’s is sent to retrieve the key from the toad. The toad represents Captain Vidal because he is also in possession of a key, his key being to the storage room while the toad’s key is to the locked door in the Pale Man’s room. The next similarity between the two worlds is the dining room scenes in the way that “the hypocritical, greedy, devouring adults at the Captain’s dinner table are visually doubled with luxurious and horrific temptations of the Pale Man’s banquet hall” (Edwards 144). But similarities do not stop there as explained by Kim Edwards “complete with the two hosts at the head of the tables framed by fireplaces with leaping hell flames” (144). Ofelia’s fantasy also crosses over into reality in the way that the “appearance of an insect and the existence of the portal to the Labyrinth” (Edwards 143). At the very begging of the film Ofelia “is rewarded with her first glimpse of this magical place’s genius loci: a chattering stick insect she identifies as a ‘fairy’” (Smith 4). The use of transitions also makes it difficult to distinguish what is reality and what is Ofelia’s fantasy. For example when the shot goes from reality into the mother’s stomach when Ofelia is telling her baby brother a story.