There is an unusual love story at the centre of the fantasy movie The
Shape Of Water. Yet, while its pairing of woman and non-human creature
is strange, it is not so strange that it stopped the Oscars academy from
awarding it 13 nominations - the most of any film this year.
Director Guillermo del Toro, 53, spoke to The Straits Times on the
telephone last week, a day after the nominations were announced.
"It's incredible. It's the validation of a journey that started in 2011. It's been a long, long journey," he says.
He was speaking from Tokyo, where he attended the premiere of the
movie, which stars Sally Hawkins, Octavia Spencer, Michael Shannon,
Richard Jenkins and Michael Stuhlbarg.
Its nominations run the gamut, from Best Picture to Best Actress for
Hawkins and Best Supporting Actor and Actress for Jenkins and Spencer
respectively. And Best Director for del Toro.
"I've been doing this for 25 years and I know enough to know that
this is not normal," del Toro says about the strong positive reactions
the movie has garnered from both critics and festival audiences around
the world.
The Shape Of Water opens in Singapore today.
He credits a large part of the film's acclaim to the mood of the
world at the moment, or the zeitgeist. "It's the story finding a footing
and it's also the zeitgeist. Sometimes, you make a good movie and
people don't see it and you have to be philosophical. So when you make a
good movie and people celebrate it, you have to remember not to go
crazy."
"This is beautiful, but you should not take yourself too seriously,"
says the helmer of commercial hits such as the comic-book movie Hellboy
(2004) and its sequel, Hellboy II: The Golden Army (2008), as well as
less successful films such as his previous work, the Gothic Victorian
romance Crimson Peak (2015).
One painful lesson that he picked up from the relative lack of
success of Crimson Peak was that when a movie has big stars, lots of
special effects and a major budget - its budget was US$55 million,
compared with Shape's US$20 million (S$26 million) - the bar for
financial success is set much higher and the tolerance for risk much
lower, causing regrettable decision-making by him and executives in the
marketing department.
"I was too ambitious and made a movie that was too expensive to
recuperate... It robbed me of the power to market the movie in the way
it needed to be marketed," he says. Crimson Peak starred A-listers such
as Jessica Chastain and Tom Hiddleston and its trailers and advertising
sold it as a mainstream horror movie.
Shape's cast was drawn more from the pool of respected, but far less famous talent.
In the film, set in Cold War-era 1960s, Hawkins' Elisa is drawn to a
creature imprisoned in a laboratory where she works as a cleaner, a
woman ignored and belittled by her male bosses, including the operative
Strickland, played by Shannon.
The creature, played by Doug Jones in costume, is, like her, mute.
She is fascinated by this and makes overtures to him in spite of his
fish-like appearance and, gradually, falls in love with him.
What sets this human-creature love affair apart is that it takes the
story further than, say, the Beauty And The Beast tale or other folk
tales such as the ones found in China, illustrated in horror films such
as A Chinese Ghost Story (1987).
Shape is different in that the relationship becomes sexual and the
creature stays true to his nature - he does not change into a human
shape, nor does he adopt human habits. And he enjoys raw meat, as
certain pets find out too late.
The myth of a woman-creature pairing is very old and found in many
cultures, says del Toro. "Whether it's Zeus taking another shape in
Greek mythology or any shape-shifting god in Asian mythology, every
country has that story."
Because he wanted to make it a more realistic adult romance, he had
to tread cautiously around the human-animal fetish that lies below the
surface of those myths. He did not want that fetish to be a dominant
theme, distracting viewers from the sweet story of two lonely souls who
find each other in difficult circumstances.
Strangely enough, he found that "the key was to do it in a Latin
American way," says the Mexican film-maker. "You take the fetishistic or
grandiose tone out of it by doing it in a way that feels everyday and
homey."
The tone of Latin American magic realism suited the telling of this
love story. He made the coupling "poetic and simple" - the act is
implied, then talked about later.
"When you are director, you are the sum of our influences and your experience, and that is all rooted in your land," he says.
His use of magical realism, seen in films in which characters slip
easily between the worlds of the real and supernatural, can be seen in
his Hellboy movies and, most famously, in his breakthrough work, the
Spanish-language wartime drama Pan's Labyrinth (2006), winner of three
Oscars.
The other difference between Shape and myths is that the woman takes
the lead, subverting the trope of the male creature pursuing the woman
through various means, such as by proving he has human kindness.
"In my movie, the woman seduces the creature," says del Toro. And,
what is more, he makes Shannon's character of Strickland, the film's
villain, a replica of the typical 1950s movie action hero, a character
who finds greatness by killing the monster.
"It's not accidental," he says of how Shape's characters are
Alice-In-Wonderland versions of good guys and villains found in classic
horror movies, such as Creature From The Black Lagoon (1954).
"I am trying to show that love is fluid, like water, and takes the shape of whatever it needs to take."
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