https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbZNkMn3PvQ
The red shoes are a reference to the ambiguous ending of "The Red Shoes": "Powell decided that it was artistically "right" for Vicky to be wearing the red shoes at that point (…): did the shoes drive her to it, did she fall or did she jump?[6]" (Wikipedia) The parallel being: is Ofelia crazy or not, i.e. was she driven by an internal or external influence? (Hamlet has the same ambiguity about sanity, hence the name.) The same question is repeated when she's tempted by the fruit on the banquet.
Ofelia's ambiguity allows her to choose, symbolized by the red shoes which in the Wizard of Oz gave Dorothy the choice whether to be in the "normal" or "magical" world. The mound of shoes reflects on how the prisoners of the concentration camps were stripped of their freedom, but also how one's "standing" can determine what role one must play.
It fascinated social scientists how almost anyone, even Göring, could be brought to rationalize doing anything as "just following orders", which led to a series of experiments that laid the basis of behaviorism. The film also puts free will in an ambiguous light when Ofelia is irresistibly drawn to the "forbidden fruit" on the banquet: it is in Ofelia's nature to disobey at all times, just as it is in the captain's nature to obey at all times. This references "original sin", but reminds us, with the ogre's eyes, that original sin is simply "knowledge of good and evil": we cannot keep ourselves from knowing, even if it devours our childhood.
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