Essay Practice Mark Scheme

Essay Practice 1–5: Mark Scheme

El laberinto del fauno (Guillermo del Toro) — Paper 2, Section C, Question 16

How the ten questions were chosen

• None of the ten questions repeats a question set on the film between 2018 and 2025 (the sixteen real questions are listed in the Teacher Guide, section 3.1).

• Command words: every real paper since 2019 has had one Analiza and one Evalúa question, and since 2021 the Analiza question has always been option (a). Each practice paper follows that pattern: five Analiza questions as (a) and five Evalúa questions as (b). The forms vary as they do in real papers: Analiza cómo (3), Analiza el efecto, Analiza la relevancia, Evalúa la importancia (2), Evalúa hasta qué punto (2), Evalúa si.

• Mix of focus: the real questions divide into theme or context (5 of 16), technique or symbolism (5), character (4) and the film as a whole (2). The practice set keeps a similar spread: three theme or context questions (disobedience, the maquis, loss of innocence), three technique questions (music and sound, camera work, colour and light), three character questions (Mercedes, Vidal, Ofelia) and one on the film as a whole (the title). Each paper pairs two different kinds of question, as the real papers do.

• Gaps in the real questions: Mercedes has never been named in a question although she appears in the indicative content of all eight mark schemes; obedience and disobedience appear in five mark schemes but never in a question; the maquis appear in seven. Music, sound and camera work have never been asked for this film, but have been set for other Section C films (music, Las 13 rosas 2019; sound effects, Diarios de motocicleta 2022; camera, Machuca 2021, La lengua de las mariposas 2022, Volver 2022). Colour has appeared only inside mark schemes, never in a question.

• Wording: the questions use the phrasing of real Section C questions, for example “Analiza la relevancia del título para la comprensión de la película” (set for another film), “la importancia del uso de la cámara en la película” and “Evalúa hasta qué punto …”. No question quotes the film, as no real question does.

• Vidal and Ofelia have each been named in two past questions, but never in a question about their own character as a whole: the 2019 question approached Vidal through the doctor, and the Ofelia questions were about the ending and the Faun.

Summary of the ten questions

Accuracy notes for teachers

• The indicative content refers to scenes rather than quoting dialogue. The only lines quoted are ones printed in Pearson’s own mark schemes (MS 2019, 2020, 2021, 2025).

• Details that are less central, or where students are most likely to misremember, are marked “Teacher check” under the relevant question. Please confirm these against the film before students rely on them.

• General historical context (e.g. Franco’s regime lasting until 1975, the guerrilla resistance being defeated in the years after 1944) is background knowledge, not something shown in the film; students must tie it to scenes (ER 2023).

• Awards mentioned (Oscars for cinematography, art direction and makeup; a nomination for Javier Navarrete’s score) are background for teachers. Students gain nothing from citing them.

General marking guidance

From the Pearson 9SP0/02 mark schemes (wording from MS 2025; the same in MS 2023 and 2024).

• All candidates must receive the same treatment. Examiners must mark the first candidate in exactly the same way as they mark the last.

• Mark schemes should be applied positively. Candidates must be rewarded for what they have shown they can do rather than penalised for omissions.

• Examiners should mark according to the mark scheme not according to their perception of where the grade boundaries may lie.

• There is no ceiling on achievement. All marks on the mark scheme should be used appropriately.

• All the marks on the mark scheme are designed to be awarded. Examiners should always award full marks if deserved, i.e. if the answer matches the mark scheme. Examiners should also be prepared to award zero marks if the candidate’s response is not worthy of credit according to the mark scheme.

• Where some judgement is required, mark schemes will provide the principles by which marks will be awarded and exemplification may be limited.

• When examiners are in doubt regarding the application of the mark scheme to a candidate’s response, the team leader must be consulted.

• Crossed out work should be marked UNLESS the candidate has replaced it with an alternative response.

Sections B and C: the three mark grids

• There are three levels-based mark grids to be applied to each individual essay that makes up the written response to works: Critical and analytical response (AO4), 20 marks; Range of grammatical structures and vocabulary (AO3), 20 marks; Accuracy of language (AO3), 10 marks. Total 50 marks.

• “It is recommended that, in order to give a detailed analysis of the work, students write between 300-350 words for each essay. This is sufficient for students to give relevant, justified points of view, arguments and conclusions with evidence from the work. The whole essay will be marked regardless of length.”

• Step 1, decide on a band: consider the answer as a whole and use a “best fit” approach. Step 2, decide on a mark: award a mark towards the top or bottom of the band depending on how securely the descriptors are met; “if the response is predominantly band 5–8 with a small amount of band 9–12 material, it would be placed in band 5–8 but be awarded a mark near the top of the band” (MS 2025, summarised).

Critical and analytical response (AO4) — 20 marks

“This mark grid assesses students’ ability to respond critically and analytically to the aspect of the literary work or film outlined in the question. To provide a critical and analytical response, students should select relevant material, present and justify points of view, develop arguments, draw conclusions based on understanding and evaluate issues, themes and cultural and social contexts.”

“Indicative content contains points that students are likely to use to construct their answer. It is possible for an answer to be constructed without mentioning some or all of these points as long as students provide alternative responses that fulfil the requirements of the question.”

Range of grammatical structures and vocabulary (AO3) — 20 marks

“This mark grid assesses students’ ability to use a range of grammatical structures and vocabulary in order to produce articulate written communication with a range of expression.”

Additional guidance (quoted from MS 2025)

• Articulate: “articulate communication is fluent, effective and coherent as students control/manipulate the language to say what they want to say rather than what they can say, for a number of different purposes.”

• Terminology for literary and cinematic analysis: “vocabulary for critical analysis according to the work being studied, for example ‘plot’, ‘character’; figures of speech such as ‘metaphor’, ‘similes’; to describe theme and style such as, ‘camera technique’, ‘hand-held camera’, ‘use of black and white’, ‘first person narrative.’”

• Complex language is considered to include: “conceptually challenging tenses such as the pluperfect, future perfect; passive voice; subjunctive mood; use of relative pronouns; using extended sentences to express abstract ideas/convey justified arguments that require a range of lexis and structures, for example conjunctions and pronouns; using synonyms and a variety of expressions to say things in different ways; all grammar and structures included in the grammar list that are specific to A Level.”

• Straightforward language is considered to be: “simple sentences with limited linking of sentences and clauses; high frequency grammatical structures and vocabulary.”

Accuracy of language (AO3) — 10 marks

“This mark grid assesses students’ ability to apply grammar and syntax accurately.”

Additional guidance (quoted from MS 2025)

• “Students are not expected to produce perfect, error-free writing in order to access the top band as errors are also made by native speakers. The mark grid describes the frequency of errors and the impact that errors have on coherence.”

• Errors that do not hinder clarity: “errors that do not affect meaning, for example gender, adjectival agreements; infrequent errors that do not distract the reader from the content and which result in coherent writing.”

• Errors that hinder clarity: “errors that make writing difficult to understand immediately (even if the meaning is eventually understood)/errors that force readers to re-read in order to understand what is meant, for example inappropriate tense formation, mismatch of subject and the possessive adjective; frequent errors hinder clarity as they will distract the reader from the content of the writing.”

• Errors that prevent meaning being conveyed: “errors that mean the reader cannot understand the message; errors that convey the wrong message; errors that make it unclear who is carrying out the action, for example using the incorrect person of the verb; mother-tongue interference.” “NB: these are examples only and do not constitute a finite list.”

Indicative content

“Indicative content is not exhaustive. Students should be rewarded for any valid response and may draw on a range of arguments or examples.” (MS 2025). The sections “What a top-band answer would do” and “Common pitfalls” below are our own guidance, drawn from the examiner reports; they are not Pearson wording.

Essay Practice 1, Question 16(a)

Analiza cómo el director presenta el tema de la desobediencia en la película.

Focus: Theme. Command: Analiza cómo.

Indicative content

Students need to analyse how the director presents the theme of disobedience in the film. They may refer to the following in their answers:

Del Toro presents disobedience as a moral choice rather than simply a fault. Characters in both the real and the fantasy world are judged by whether they obey blindly or follow their conscience: Ofelia, Dr Ferreiro and Mercedes disobey, while Captain Vidal stands for unquestioning obedience to the regime.

• Ofelia disobeys adults in both worlds. She ruins the new dress her mother gave her and misses Vidal’s dinner to carry out the first task at the fig tree. In the Pale Man’s lair she ignores the Faun’s warning not to eat anything and takes grapes from the banquet, which wakes the Pale Man and costs two of the fairies their lives. This disobedience is shown as a flaw, but also as a sign of her independence.

• Her final act of disobedience is the climax of the film. When the Faun asks for a drop of her baby brother’s blood, she refuses. The ending reveals that this refusal was the real test: by spilling her own blood rather than an innocent’s, she proves she is Princess Moanna. Disobeying an unjust order is rewarded, which shows that unquestioning obedience is not always right.

• Dr Ferreiro’s disobedience states the theme most directly. Instead of keeping the tortured maqui alive for Vidal, he gives him the injection he asks for and tells Vidal that obeying for the sake of obeying, without thinking, is what people like him do: “Es que obedecer por obedecer así, sin pensarlo, eso solo lo hacen gentes como usted, capitán”. Vidal shoots him in the back as he walks away, showing the price of disobedience in Franco’s Spain.

• Mercedes disobeys from inside Vidal’s own household. She passes food, medicine and information to the maquis, keeps a copy of the key to the storehouse and hides a knife in her apron. When she is caught, she cuts herself free, wounds Vidal and escapes, so her disobedience becomes active resistance.

• Vidal represents the opposite value. He is obsessed with order and punctuality (his father’s watch) and with obedience to the new regime and to his father’s heroic image. The film links his obedience directly to violence: the killing of the peasants, the torture of the prisoner, the shooting of the doctor.

• Symbols reinforce the theme. The chalk lets Ofelia draw doors where the adults have built walls and locked rooms, for example when she escapes from her locked bedroom; this contrasts with Vidal’s keys and locks. The two worlds mirror each other: the Faun, like Vidal, gives orders and expects obedience, so Ofelia’s choices in the fantasy world comment on obedience in the real one.

• Context: post-war Spain was a society built on obedience to the army, the Church and the State. By making the heroes of the film those who disobey, del Toro criticises the conformity that the dictatorship demanded.

What a top-band answer (AO4 17–20) would do

• Distinguishes between kinds of disobedience: Ofelia eating the grapes (a lapse of self-control with bad consequences) is not the same as her refusal at the end (a conscious moral choice), and the film judges them differently.

• Links the real and fantasy worlds rather than treating them separately, e.g. the Faun’s demand for obedience set against Vidal’s.

• Uses the doctor scene as evidence and explains it, rather than dropping in the quotation.

• Analyses how the director presents the theme (parallel structure, symbols such as the chalk and the keys, the ending) and not just what characters do.

• Useful language: la desobediencia como elección moral; obedecer ciegamente; desafiar la autoridad; el director pretende mostrar que…; si Ofelia hubiera obedecido, su hermano habría muerto.

Common pitfalls

• Retelling the three tasks in order without saying how each one relates to disobedience.

• Writing only about Ofelia; the doctor and Mercedes carry much of the theme.

• Factual errors of the kind flagged in ER 2019, e.g. claiming that Ofelia always obeys the Faun (or always disobeys him).

• Turning the essay into a loyalty essay (the 2022 question). Loyalty and disobedience overlap, but the essay must stay on disobedience.

• Misquoting the doctor’s line. If unsure of the exact words, paraphrase.

Essay Practice 1, Question 16(b)

Evalúa la importancia del personaje de Mercedes en la película.

Focus: Character. Command: Evalúa la importancia.

Indicative content

Students need to evaluate the importance of the character of Mercedes in the film. They may refer to the following in their answers:

Mercedes is Vidal’s housekeeper and, secretly, a supporter of the maquis led by her brother Pedro. She links the mill, the forest and Ofelia, and she is present at both the climax and the resolution of the real-world plot.

It could be said that she is very important because:

• She is the main link between the military post and the maquis. She passes them food, medicine and information and, with Dr Ferreiro, shows that resistance exists inside Vidal’s own house. Without her, the rebel storyline could not move forward.

• She becomes a mother figure for Ofelia as Carmen grows weaker and dies. She comforts Ofelia and hums her a lullaby, and she is the one who holds Ofelia as she dies in the final scene. The lullaby links her to the theme of motherhood and to the film’s music.

• She challenges the way women are seen in the film. Vidal dismisses her as “solo una mujer”, and it is precisely this underestimation that allows her to escape: she cuts herself free with the knife hidden in her apron, stabs him and cuts his mouth. She is an active woman, in contrast with Carmen’s submissiveness.

• She delivers the final judgement on Vidal. She takes his son and tells him that the boy will not even know his name (“Ni siquiera sabrá tu nombre”), erasing the legacy Vidal cared about most. The theme of paternity is resolved through her.

• She is the only adult who half-believes in Ofelia’s world: she tells Ofelia that her mother used to warn her about fauns. She and Ofelia mirror each other: both keep secrets from Vidal, both use a key, both try to escape and both defy him.

It could also be said that she is less important because:

• The central story belongs to Ofelia and the fantasy world, which Mercedes never enters.

• She cannot protect Ofelia. Their attempt to leave the mill together is stopped by Vidal, and she arrives only as Ofelia is dying.

• The victory she shares in is limited. Vidal dies, but the audience knows that Franco’s regime lasted until 1975 and that the guerrilla resistance was defeated, so her importance is personal and symbolic rather than historical.

What a top-band answer (AO4 17–20) would do

• Reaches a clear judgement, e.g. that Mercedes is essential as Vidal’s counterpart in the real world and as the adult version of Ofelia, even though the fantasy plot does not depend on her.

• Weighs her importance against another character (Carmen, the doctor or Ofelia) instead of simply listing what she does.

• Uses cinematic evidence as well as plot: the lullaby, the knife in her apron, how she is framed with Ofelia in the final scene.

• Connects her to the context of women in post-war Spain and the resistance.

• Useful language: desempeña un papel clave; sirve de puente entre…; a pesar de que Vidal la subestime…; sin Mercedes, el espectador no habría conocido…

Common pitfalls

• Narrating her escape from the storehouse in detail without evaluation.

• Describing her only as “la criada”; her importance lies in what she represents.

• No counter-argument: Evalúa needs some weighing up, as the Pearson mark schemes for Evalúa questions show.

• Inaccurate details, e.g. confusing her brother with the doctor, or claiming she enters the fantasy world.

Essay Practice 2, Question 16(a)

Analiza el efecto de la música y los efectos sonoros en la película.

Focus: Technique (music and sound). Command: Analiza el efecto.

Indicative content

Students need to analyse the effect of the music and sound effects in the film. They may refer to the following in their answers:

Javier Navarrete’s score, nominated for an Oscar, is built around a melancholy lullaby. Together with the sound design of the mill, Vidal’s watch and the creatures, it shapes how the viewer reacts to both worlds and links the characters emotionally.

• The lullaby (nana) is the main musical motif. Mercedes hums it to Ofelia inside the story (diegetic music) and it returns in the score (non-diegetic music). It is heard at the beginning and the end of the film, which frames Ofelia’s story as a tragedy from the start and reinforces the circular structure.

• Because it is a lullaby with no words, the melody suggests childhood, protection and loss at the same time. It associates Mercedes with motherhood and turns the final scene into a lament for a child.

• Sound effects make violence physical and shocking. In the scene where Vidal kills the peasants, the sound of the blows makes the audience feel the brutality rather than just see it. Sudden gunshots (the doctor, Ofelia) break moments of tension without warning.

• Vidal is associated with mechanical sound: the watch he constantly checks and the machinery of the mill, where he has his office. These sounds suggest order, control and the passing of time, and his obsession with his father’s death.

• In the Pale Man scene there is almost no dialogue: the Pale Man does not speak, so music and sound effects create the tension and direct the viewer’s attention to the details of the room and to Ofelia’s reactions (MS 2024).

• The creatures are given distinctive sounds: the creaking of the Faun’s body and his formal, theatrical voice; the toad in the fig tree; the cries of the mandrake root when Carmen throws it into the fire, which links the root’s death with her labour.

• Silence is also used: moments of quiet before violence, and the calm of the ending, make the sound that follows more powerful.

What a top-band answer (AO4 17–20) would do

• Explains the effect of each sound on the viewer and connects it to a theme (innocence, violence, control, motherhood); the 2020 exemplar stayed in the 9–12 band because technique was not linked to the question (ER 2020).

• Distinguishes diegetic and non-diegetic sound and explains why the difference matters for the lullaby.

• Chooses two or three well-developed examples rather than a long list.

• Useful terminology: la banda sonora, la música diegética / extradiegética, los efectos sonoros, el motivo musical (leitmotiv), la nana, crear tensión, el silencio, el espectador.

Common pitfalls

• Listing sounds (“hay música triste, hay disparos”) without explaining the effect.

• Writing generally about the music without referring to specific scenes.

• Inventing musical detail the student cannot be sure of (which instruments, which cue plays when).

• Drifting into a colour or camera essay.

Essay Practice 2, Question 16(b)

Evalúa hasta qué punto el capitán Vidal es un personaje completamente malvado.

Focus: Character. Command: Evalúa hasta qué punto.

Indicative content

Students need to evaluate to what extent Captain Vidal is a completely evil character. They may refer to the following in their answers:

Vidal is the film’s antagonist and represents the brutality of the Francoist military. Most students will argue that he is largely evil; stronger answers will weigh whether the film also gives him a psychology, a history or moments of vulnerability.

It could be said that he is completely evil because:

• His violence is gratuitous. He kills a peasant and his son on mere suspicion of helping the rebels, then finds that they were only hunting rabbits (MS 2020, 2023). He tortures the captured maqui, shoots the doctor in the back and, finally, shoots Ofelia, a child.

• He treats Carmen as a means to an heir. He makes her travel late in her pregnancy because a son should be born where his father is (MS 2019), tells the doctor to save the baby rather than her (“salva al niño”), and silences her at the dinner (“Perdonen a mi mujer”, MS 2021).

• He uses food as power: ration cards and the storehouse key, while he and his guests enjoy a banquet (MS 2024). The director draws a parallel between his dinner and the Pale Man’s banquet, equating him with the film’s monster (MS 2021, 2022).

• His coldness is shown through image: an immaculate uniform, black gloves, the cold palette of the mill, the scene where he shaves in the mirror and draws the razor across the throat of his reflection.

It could also be said that he is not completely evil, or that the film explains him, because:

• He lives under the weight of his father’s legend. At the dinner a guest recalls that his father broke his watch at the moment of his death so his son would know how a brave man dies; Vidal denies it. The watch suggests insecurity and a need to live up to a myth.

• The film shows his physical vulnerability: after Mercedes cuts his face, he stitches the wound himself, in pain. He is human, not a supernatural monster.

• He cares about his son, in his own way. At the end he hands the baby to Mercedes and asks that his son be told the hour of his death, repeating his father’s ritual; Mercedes refuses (MS 2019).

• His cruelty is partly the product of an ideology: he wants his son born in a “España limpia y nueva” (MS 2019). Del Toro may be showing that fascism creates men like Vidal, so the evil is systemic as well as personal.

What a top-band answer (AO4 17–20) would do

• Gives a clear, justified judgement (e.g. “en gran parte, sí, pero…”) and returns to it in the conclusion.

• Distinguishes between explaining Vidal and excusing him.

• Uses cinematic technique as evidence: costume, colour, close-ups of the watch, the mirror scene, the parallel with the Pale Man.

• Links him to the context of the Franco regime without losing focus on the character.

• Useful language: despiadado, sádico, frío, obsesionado con el legado de su padre; aunque sea…, no deja de ser…; lo que más llama la atención es…

Common pitfalls

• A one-sided catalogue of his crimes with no evaluation of “hasta qué punto”.

• Getting the watch story wrong, or presenting it as fact rather than something Vidal denies.

• Claiming Vidal sees the Faun; in the final scene he sees Ofelia talking to no one.

• Moral outrage instead of analysis (“es un hombre horrible”) repeated without evidence.

Essay Practice 3, Question 16(a)

Analiza la relevancia del título para la comprensión de la película.

Focus: The film as a whole (title). Command: Analiza la relevancia.

Indicative content

Students need to analyse the relevance of the title to understanding the film. They may refer to the following in their answers:

The title names a place, the stone labyrinth beside the mill, and a character, the Faun. Both help the viewer understand the structure and the main themes of the film: choice, danger, obedience and escape.

• The labyrinth is a real place in the film: an ancient stone labyrinth near the mill, the entrance to the fantasy world. Ofelia meets the Faun at its centre on her first night, and the film begins and ends there, so the title points to the frame of the story.

• The labyrinth is a metaphor for Ofelia’s situation. She is trapped between a violent stepfather, a sick mother and a war, with no obvious way out; the tasks are her route through it, and each one involves a choice.

• It can also be read as a metaphor for post-war Spain: a country trapped after 1939, with the maquis hiding in the forest and ordinary people caught between two sides.

• In the final sequence Vidal follows Ofelia into the labyrinth. The place that guides Ofelia is a place where he is lost: the labyrinth protects the innocent and confuses the oppressor.

• “Del fauno”: the possessive suggests the labyrinth belongs to the Faun and underlines his power. He is ambiguous, frightening at first, then an ally, then demanding (MS 2023, 2024), so the title invites the viewer to ask whether he, and the labyrinth, can be trusted.

• The title foregrounds the fantasy element, yet most of the film is a war drama. Students may argue that this is deliberate: it shows the world as a child sees it, and it leaves open whether the labyrinth and the Faun exist outside Ofelia’s imagination (MS 2020, 2025).

• The labyrinth also recalls classical myth (the hero who enters a maze to face a monster) and the faun is a figure from classical mythology associated with nature, which links to the tree and the mandrake root.

What a top-band answer (AO4 17–20) would do

• Goes beyond the literal place to what the title reveals about structure (the circular opening and ending) and themes (choice, obedience, escape).

• Treats both halves of the title: the labyrinth and the Faun.

• Considers whether the title is fully appropriate for a film so rooted in historical reality.

• Useful language: el título alude a…; funciona como metáfora de…; cobra un doble sentido; el laberinto simboliza…; el genitivo “del fauno” sugiere que…

Common pitfalls

• Describing the labyrinth physically without explaining its relevance.

• Writing a Faun character essay (the 2023 question) instead of a title essay.

• Discussing the English title “Pan’s Labyrinth” at length; it is not needed.

• Asserting a single “correct” meaning; the question rewards interpretation supported by scenes.

Essay Practice 3, Question 16(b)

Evalúa si el director presenta a los maquis como héroes en la película.

Focus: Theme / historical context (the resistance). Command: Evalúa si.

Indicative content

Students need to evaluate whether the director presents the maquis as heroes in the film. They may refer to the following in their answers:

The maquis are the Republican guerrillas hiding in the mountains after the Civil War, led by Pedro, Mercedes’s brother. Del Toro presents them sympathetically, but not without showing their weakness, their violence and the historical defeat that awaits them.

It could be said that they are presented as heroes because:

• They fight against Vidal’s injustice and are supported by the film’s most admirable adults, Mercedes and Dr Ferreiro.

• They endure hunger, cold and lack of medicine in the forest (MS 2023): the doctor has to amputate a wounded man’s leg. Their suffering invites the viewer’s sympathy.

• They are resourceful and brave: with Mercedes’s key they take supplies from the storehouse (MS 2022, 2024), and they rescue Mercedes in the forest when Vidal’s soldiers pursue her.

• At the end they surround Vidal and Pedro kills him. They take the baby, promising a future free of his father’s ideals. The real-world plot ends with their victory.

It could also be said that they are not simply presented as heroes because:

• They also use violence: the film shows two armed groups fighting (MS 2020), and the guerrilla war costs lives on both sides.

• They are weaker than the army: soldiers attack their camp, many are killed and one is captured and tortured. The film shows the human cost of resistance, not a heroic adventure.

• They are presented mainly as a group, with little individual development apart from Pedro. They may stand for an idea (hope, resistance) more than for individual heroes.

• The historical context adds irony: their victory at the mill is local and temporary. Franco’s regime lasted until 1975 and the guerrilla resistance was defeated in the following years, so they can be seen as tragic rather than triumphant heroes.

• The film’s true acts of heroism may belong to individuals: Ofelia, Mercedes and the doctor.

What a top-band answer (AO4 17–20) would do

• Reaches a nuanced judgement: e.g. sympathetic, heroic resistance, but del Toro avoids idealising war.

• Roots the context in the film (“rooted in the film”, ER 2023) rather than writing a history essay.

• Uses cinematic evidence: the cold, misty forest; how the group is framed; the final shot of the maquis around Vidal.

• Useful language: la resistencia antifranquista; la guerrilla; se les presenta como…; no obstante, el director no idealiza…; el espectador sabe que…

Common pitfalls

• Writing about the Civil War in general with little reference to scenes.

• Confusing the maquis with Vidal’s soldiers or with the Nationalists.

• Narrating the attack on the storehouse or the forest battle without judgement.

• Claiming the maquis win the war.

Essay Practice 4, Question 16(a)

Analiza cómo el director presenta el tema de la pérdida de la inocencia en la película.

Focus: Theme. Command: Analiza cómo.

Indicative content

Students need to analyse how the director presents the theme of the loss of innocence in the film. They may refer to the following in their answers:

The film follows Ofelia from a child reading fairy tales to a girl who faces death. The violence of the adult world destroys innocence around her, and the Faun’s final test is explicitly about the blood of an innocent.

• At the start Ofelia travels with her books of fairy tales, and Carmen tells her she is too old for them (MS 2025). Her innocence is out of place in the harsh world of 1944.

• The adult world is brutal: the killing of the peasant and his son, who were only hunting rabbits (MS 2023), the torture of the maqui, the doctor’s death and Carmen’s death in childbirth. The film shows the viewer this violence directly, and Ofelia lives in the middle of it.

• The fantasy world is not a safe refuge. The tasks become more dangerous; in the Pale Man’s lair a pile of children’s shoes suggests that children have been devoured, so innocence is literally consumed. Some critics link this image to the atrocities of fascism in Europe.

• Ofelia’s mistakes are those of a child: she ruins her new dress in the mud at the fig tree and she cannot resist the grapes at the banquet. Del Toro presents these as signs of childhood, not wickedness.

• The final test concerns “innocent blood”. Ofelia refuses to let the Faun hurt her brother, so the baby becomes a symbol of a new innocence that can be protected; Mercedes promises he will grow up without knowing his father. Ofelia herself becomes the innocent victim when Vidal shoots her.

• The ending is ambiguous: in the real world innocence is destroyed, but in the fantasy world Ofelia’s purity of heart is rewarded and she is received as a princess (MS 2020).

• Techniques: the contrast between warm colours in the fantasy and cold colours in the real world; blood as a recurring image (the opening, Carmen’s haemorrhage, the mandrake fed with blood, the final drop on the altar); Ofelia framed as small and alone in large spaces.

What a top-band answer (AO4 17–20) would do

• Asks whether Ofelia really loses her innocence: she loses her childhood and her family but arguably keeps her moral innocence to the end.

• Connects the theme to the context: children in post-war Spain, hunger and repression.

• Explains how the director presents the theme (symbols, colour, structure), not only what happens.

• Useful language: la inocencia infantil; la crueldad del mundo adulto; se ve obligada a madurar; esto pone de relieve…; aunque pierda a su familia, conserva…

Common pitfalls

• A general essay about childhood with no scenes.

• Equating innocence only with naivety, and so missing the moral meaning of the final test.

• Retelling the ending without analysing it.

• Presenting the Holocaust reading of the shoes as fact rather than interpretation.

Essay Practice 4, Question 16(b)

Evalúa la importancia del uso de la cámara en la película.

Focus: Technique (camera work). Command: Evalúa la importancia.

Indicative content

Students need to evaluate the importance of the use of the camera in the film. They may refer to the following in their answers:

Del Toro and his director of photography, Guillermo Navarro (Oscar for Best Cinematography), use camera movement, shot types and transitions to link the two worlds and to shape the viewer’s reaction. Students should weigh this against other elements such as colour, design, sound and performance.

It could be said that the camera is very important because:

• Transitions: the camera often passes behind an object or a figure to move from one scene to the next (a type of wipe), so the story flows without obvious cuts. This suggests that the real and the fantasy worlds are part of one continuous reality.

• Movement: fluid tracking shots follow Ofelia through the labyrinth, the mill and the forest, so the viewer shares her curiosity and fear.

• Close-ups and detail shots pick out the objects that drive the plot: Vidal’s watch, the key, the chalk, the knife in Mercedes’s apron.

• Close shots of violence, such as the killing of the peasants or Vidal stitching his own face, force the viewer to confront the brutality instead of looking away.

• Angles and framing: Vidal is often shot so that he dominates the frame, while Ofelia appears small in large spaces (the tree, the Pale Man’s hall), underlining her vulnerability.

• Point of view creates the central ambiguity of the ending: we see Ofelia with the Faun, but when Vidal arrives he sees her talking to no one (MS 2020, 2025).

It could also be said that other elements are more important because:

• Colour and art design (the film also won Oscars for Art Direction and Makeup) create the two worlds and the creatures (MS 2022, 2024).

• The music, especially the lullaby, carries much of the emotion.

• The performances and the script (Vidal, Ofelia, Mercedes) carry the themes of power and resistance.

• The camera works in combination with these elements; its importance lies in how it connects them.

What a top-band answer (AO4 17–20) would do

• Evaluates rather than lists: reaches a judgement on how important the camera is relative to other techniques.

• Uses precise terminology, each term tied to a meaning: plano general, primer plano, plano detalle, picado, contrapicado, travelling, fundido, transición.

• Chooses two or three scenes the student knows well and analyses them closely.

• Links camera work to the themes (the two worlds, violence, Ofelia’s vulnerability).

Common pitfalls

• Naming shots without saying what they show or why they matter.

• Inventing specific shots; examiners warn against factual errors (ER 2025).

• Ignoring the Evalúa element: no comparison with colour, sound or design.

• Writing mostly about colour (a common comfort zone) and forgetting the camera.

Essay Practice 5, Question 16(a)

Analiza cómo el director usa el color y la luz para presentar a los personajes de la película.

Focus: Technique (colour and light). Command: Analiza cómo.

Indicative content

Students need to analyse how the director uses colour and light to present the characters in the film. They may refer to the following in their answers:

The real world is filmed in cold blues, greys and greens and the fantasy world in warm golds, ambers and reds (MS 2022). Within this contrast, each character is given colours and lighting that reveal their role.

• Vidal is associated with the cold, metallic palette of the mill: a dark uniform, black gloves, polished boots, hard light. The colours express control, coldness and the military order he imposes.

• Ofelia is placed between the two palettes. In the real world she is in cold light; in the fantasy scenes she is bathed in warm, golden light, and in the final kingdom she is surrounded by gold and red, showing where she belongs.

• The dress Carmen gives her, and its ruin in the mud at the fig tree, shows through colour and costume the clash between the adult world’s expectations and Ofelia’s own path.

• Carmen is pale and weakly lit as her health declines; the white of her bed and the red of her blood make her illness visible.

• Mercedes wears dark, earthy colours and is often seen in dim, candle-like light or shadow, fitting her secret life and her connection with the forest.

• The Faun has earth colours that camouflage him in the stone and the vegetation (MS 2024). The Pale Man has an absence of colour but is surrounded by gold, red and darkness, which shows how he lures children and then devours them (MS 2024).

• Warm light is not always safe: Vidal’s dinner is lit warmly, like the Pale Man’s banquet, to show abundance for the powerful while others go hungry. The parallel links Vidal to the monster (MS 2021, 2022).

• Red links the characters across both worlds through blood: Carmen’s haemorrhage, Vidal’s wound, Ofelia’s blood on the altar.

What a top-band answer (AO4 17–20) would do

• Focuses on characters, as the question asks, rather than repeating the general contrast between the two worlds (the 2022 question).

• Explains what each colour or lighting choice tells the viewer about the character and links it to a theme.

• Notes exceptions and mixing (e.g. warm light at Vidal’s table; colours mixing after the maquis attack, ER 2022).

• Useful terminology: la paleta de colores, los tonos fríos / cálidos, tonos dorados, grises metálicos, la iluminación, la luz tenue, el contraste, el vestuario.

Common pitfalls

• Writing the 2022 reality/fantasy essay instead of an essay about characters.

• Simplistic equations (“colores oscuros = malo”) without evidence.

• Describing colours without linking them to meaning (the 2020 exemplar’s problem, ER 2020).

• Inventing colour details of costumes the student cannot be sure of.

Essay Practice 5, Question 16(b)

Evalúa hasta qué punto Ofelia puede considerarse una heroína en la película.

Focus: Character. Command: Evalúa hasta qué punto.

Indicative content

Students need to evaluate to what extent Ofelia can be considered a heroine in the film. They may refer to the following in their answers:

Ofelia is the protagonist of a fairy tale set inside a war film. She shows courage and moral strength, but she is also a child, a victim and a character whose triumph may exist only in her imagination.

It could be said that she is a heroine because:

• She shows physical courage in the tasks: she crawls into the fig tree and faces the giant toad, and she escapes the Pale Man.

• She tries to save her mother by placing the mandrake root under Carmen’s bed, which helps her for a time (MS 2023).

• She stands up to Vidal: she puts sleeping medicine in his drink, takes her brother and runs into the labyrinth.

• Her greatest act is moral: she refuses to shed her brother’s blood and sacrifices herself instead (MS 2025). This makes her the heroine of her own fairy tale, and she is received as Princess Moanna (MS 2020).

It could also be said that she is not entirely a heroine because:

• She is a child and a victim of the adult world. She cannot save her mother, the doctor or herself, and Vidal kills her.

• She makes mistakes: she disobeys the Faun and eats the grapes, which costs two fairies their lives (ER 2019 warns against saying she always obeys him).

• In the real world, the victory over Vidal belongs to Mercedes and the maquis.

• Her heroism may exist only in her imagination: no adult sees the Faun, and Vidal sees her talking to no one (MS 2020, 2025).

• She may be better described as a tragic heroine: her courage is real, but it leads to her death.

What a top-band answer (AO4 17–20) would do

• Gives a clear, qualified judgement (e.g. “es una heroína, pero una heroína trágica”) and sustains it.

• Distinguishes between physical courage and moral courage.

• Uses cinematic evidence: framing Ofelia as small in large spaces, warm light in the final kingdom.

• Relates her to the context: a child of the defeated side in post-war Spain.

• Useful language: una heroína trágica; valentía moral; se niega a…; aunque no consiga salvar a su madre…; lo que la convierte en heroína es…

Common pitfalls

• Retelling the three tasks as a story.

• Judging only from the fantasy world, or only from the real world.

• Turning the essay into the 2020 question (“¿es positivo el final?”) without addressing heroism.

• Factual errors, e.g. saying Ofelia completes every task perfectly.