Betrayal In Pan's Labyrinth And Hacksaw Ridge

When producing films, directors typically maintain the purpose of wanting their audience to follow the message they have portrayed. The viewers must take an active role of implicitly reading between the storylines in order to understand an underlying idea that is greater than the story itself. The audience is able to determine the theme implicitly due to common techniques that are used by many directors. Throughout the dark fantasy film Pan’s Labyrinth, by Guillermo Del Toro, and in the war drama film Hacksaw Ridge, by Mel Gibson, both directors were able to display the theme of betrayal through various filming techniques. The directors had done more than simply allow actors to speak the message directly; they wanted to use specific techniques …show more content…
In both films, the use of low-key lighting helps portray the negative connotation during the scenes in which betrayal occurs. In Pan’s Labyrinth, the source of low-key lighting sets a downhearted mood for Ofelia to reveal her betrayal to the faun in the labyrinth. After she comes back from her journey in the underworld, the faun realizes that “the beast that Ophelia encounter[ed ate] the fairies (by biting off their heads)” (Spector, 83). Ofelia had eaten grapes off of the table in the underworld, which the faun specifically told her not to, and as a consequence the beast had awoken and eaten the faun’s two fairies. Ofelia tells this to the faun during the night time when the only source of light is the moon. Due to the shadows and the contrast of the lighting the characters receive, there is a heightened sense of betrayal. The gloomy light in which Ofelia is seen shows how her temptation has brought the death of the faun’s two precious fairies. If bright light had been used in replacement, the effects would have been very different and the scene would have felt airy and less serious. In comparison, throughout Hacksaw Ridge, the directors were able to show Desmond’s betrayal by also using the moon as the source of low-key lighting. According to a researcher, “The crudest device used to depict the Japanese people appeared in images based on the supposedly bestial features of the enemy...Japanese were most frequently equated with ‘rats’” (Moon, 340). In the film, the use of dim lighting from the moon in the scene in which the rats were eating the corpses of American soldiers, brought forth a heartbreaking emotion. During this scene, Desmond was seen to be on the side and the dark lighting further emphasized that Desmond was betraying his comrades by allowing such a sorrow act occur to his own people. Simply because Desmond was unwilling to