Long ago, half a century ago, in the mythical times of the Cold War, there was a princess in the world. She was speechless, but she could listen to music and dance to her. She worked as a princess cleaner in a secret government laboratory. Once she saw the main secret: a monster that lived in water. I saw and fell in love. Then she decided to save him from the vivisectors, although she was just a weak woman.
Water has no form - it takes the form of any vessel. Guillermo del Toro says love is the same. It can be said otherwise: a fantasy like water that fills any form. Mexican Guillermo del Toro shot horror ("Cronos", "Mimic"), gothic ("Crimson Peak") and neo-Gothic ("El espinazo del diablo"), comics ("Hellboy", "Blade II"), fairy tales ("El laberinto del fauno ") and fiction (" Pacific Rim "), but any viewer can easily recognize his style, themes and characters. The same is true of "The Shape of Water" - an amazing hybrid of historical reconstruction, phantasmagoria, melodrama and human rights films.
Whose rights does Guillermo del Toro protect? In principle, any minority: children and women, cripples and homosexuals, partisans and intellectuals. He is always on the side of the weak, against intolerance and totalitarianism, which fascism considers the quintessence of which (at least three of his paintings are devoted to the struggle against him). However, the most vulnerable, fragile and dearly loved by his heroes are monsters. Leaving nature.
Do not laugh at the director-idealist, earnestly believing in monsters. In the first half of the twentieth century, monsters were usually a metaphor for the Alien, the enemy of society and the state to be expelled and then destroyed. Nosferatu, Dracula, Wolfman, Mummy - they were all alone and rejected. A normal person shuddered at their unnaturalness, rejected them, feared and fought with those who exist under different laws. About this - and the best books of the great American science fiction Lovecraft, whose "At the Mountains of Madness" Guillermo del Toro already ten years hopelessly dreams to film. However, the director looks at these characters differently: with admiration and sadness, almost without fear. He rehabilitated vampires in Cronos and Blade II, ghosts in At the Mountains of Madness and Crimson Peak, the very damn thing in two Hellboy films. The most terrible creatures in his films have always been people, and the main enemy is cruel anthropocentrism.
"The Shape of Water" is a postmodern rethinking of another cult horror from the past, a characteristic picture of the times of opposition between the USA and the USSR: "Creature from the Black Lagoon". In that film, a team of athletic folded scientists fought with an ancient amphibian monster hiding from human eyes in the depths of the Amazon. To her misfortune, the Creature climbed out of the depths in search of a friend: it was not worth it to steal the bride of the brave American playboys, for this you can get a harpoon under the rib. Guillermo del Toro is the opposite. The action was transferred from Latin America to the States, working for the handsome government (Michael Shannon, as if born for such roles) is a real monster, a cold-blooded sadist. The woman, invisible and mute, Eliza (British actress Sally Hawkins, at the same time beautiful and clown, who glorified her name as Mike Leigh in Happy-Go-Lucky) chooses not a strong man, but a helpless amphibian prisoner.
The most subtle work done with the main character - however, also unnamed, wordless and virtually invisible until the middle of the film. Externally, it is not much different from the Critter from the old tape - all the old-fashioned attributes of the appearance are observed, but it seems no longer frightening, but mysteriously attractive. Repulsive became intriguing, almost seductive, literally shining with new colors (the 1954 film was black and white), defining the cold color gamut of the picture. The transformation was completed by the favorite actor Guillermo del Toro, whose face is known to few, the pantomime genius Doug Jones played Faun and Pale Man in "El laberinto del fauno" and Amphibian twin brother Abe Sapien in two Hellboy. In addition, it is not about humanization, but about the grace and mystery of a magical creature - a miracle of nature.
Amphibian embodies all that hate the paranoid system: it is the perfect scapegoat in the world of total fear. On the amphibian side, the wimps team: Eliza is supported by her neighbor, an aging lonely gay artist (Richard Jenkins) and a vigorous black girlfriend (Octavia Spencer), next to them is a doubting scientist (Michael Stuhlbarg), he also has a secret life and uncomfortable secrets. This is a riot of renegades against the accepted order of things, and there is no doubt - Guillermo del Toro feels like one of them.
His film is also a kind of rebellion against the accepted rules of entertainment films, which the director at least observed in several recent films. In "The Shape of Water", he allows himself to return to the unique intimate intonation left after "El laberinto del fauno" (and for the first time since the time of that picture he enters the festival competition!). In it - and the visual perfectionism of an elegant production, and the combination of frank fabulousness with extremely uncomfortable and unchildren scenes of uncensored violence and sex. From this degree of magic only increases. The degree of irritation on the part of purists will also increase, whether they are viewers of a distilled commercial movie or a purely author. Guillermo del Toro does not accept these divisions and balances with pleasure on the border of two worlds.
THE SHAPE OF WATER | Official Trailer | FOX Searchlight
"The Shape of Water" is not only a unique love story and political statement, but also a synephilic attraction. The case is not limited to obvious allusions to "Creature from the Black Lagoon" and multiple self-citations. For example, Eliza and her gay friend adore musicals and spend evenings watching them, and the emotional climax of the picture is the most ingenious parody-stylization of the musical: in this respect (and in some others) "The Shape of Water" is a twin-film "Dancer in the Dark " by Lars von Trier. In addition, Eliza lives in a room above the cinema, where they play peplum "The Story of Ruth" and the comedy "Mardi gras". Several times during the film, she finds herself in the auditorium, and then the Amphibian gets there - and freezes in horror and delight in front of the stage with the tormented slaves. Cinema is a plastic art and may not need words. Like the love of two dumb, Amphibians and Eliza.
The illustrations are used in agreement with the Depositphotos photobank
Liked the article? Please click here for follow and don't forget to Upvote...