The Visual World of Guillermo del Toro
Guillermo del Toro – one of the biggest directors in the incredible world of cinema in the past twenty years. Known for his unique visual style, Del Toro invites us to a whole new dimension, filled with tangled monsters and the adventures and hard choices of the protagonists. A spectacular experience.
Del Toro – a symbolist and surrealist with a flare for the dramatic, uses professionally the language of plasticity – shape, form, colour and sound to develop his monster movies. Everything has its meaning and this is exactly why the whole plot is made into a dark steampunk fairytale with strongly developed characters and perfectly suitable surroundings. If you export every single frame of his movies, they will reveal an incredible composition and mood, which give us the feeling of watching a true masterpiece.
Crimson Peak (2015) – a Victorian tale of love, passion, betrayal and horror. The main character, a girl named Edith, who wants to break the sexist behaviour towards women, falls in love with a first eye clichéd character – a handsome young gentleman, expanding his business.
Although, things are not what they seem to be. The tale goes on, revealing a horrible sexual affair between brother and sister, who have been dead for a hundred years, a lust for money, power and mostly – dominance.
Horrible secrets, buried in the dungeon help Edith to discover the truth and fight for her life. The screenplay is professionally adapted to what seems like a Beksinsky and Lovecraft inspirited realm, revealing the true colours of the characters’ souls.
What makes us relate to the monsters is that they are always pure of heart, with humanised features, slightly lost faith in the outside world due to absence of love. A character in need of this journey, in order to fully become himself and find his courage, defeating the villain and sacrificing his most precious things in the world. Here either we are describing Hellboy, the amphibian man, or the faun.
The intro
Opening credits are very important for each movie. They present the universe in which the action takes place and if they are well made – such as, for example, Tim Burton’s introductions, they can be beneficial for the spectator’s comprehension.
Del Toro’s introductions represent very powerfully the style and colour palette of the specific movie. Through 2D animation, he tells a short story at the beginning, which interests the viewer to continue watching. The pictures are based on his own illustrations that he keeps in his journals, while developing his ideas.
Colour palette
Contrast. Strong light. Urbanised environment. A reality representing the sur-reality underneath it. The colours of World War II Spain are represented in every aspect, either it’s the soil shades - maroon, amber, brick, ochre, or the olive crowns – jumper, pine, basil and emerald, creating a visual world of peculiar tales, giving us a sense of intimacy and in the same time tension, which thickens the air, poisoning our minds, growing inside of us like a live organism. Blue and green – the colours of coldness, depth, but also purity. These colours reveal to us that the character is about to make a very important decision and go on his destined path. Yellow and red – vibrancy, life, attention. All this language is teaching us is when to be alerted to pay more attention to a certain object or situation. Everything in this movie is alive – the floor, the walls, the darkness in the corner.
The director is a fan of the soft palette group of colours such as denim, mauve, sacramento, space, mahogany, crimson and others. These soft shades give us the feeling of swimming in deep sea water or looking at molten lava. An unusual choice of palette, but as always in a Del Toro’s movie – a symbolical one.
Of course, every situation has its colour mood that can help us understand the meaning of characters and environment. Del Toro uses the colour gold when he wishes to show us if a character is royalty, for an example – the Bathmora clan from Hellboy II: The Golden Arm (2008) or the Gods of the Underworld, Princess Moana’s parents (Pan’s Labyrinth, 2006).
The visual effects
Del Toro’s methods of developing a set are a hundred percent professional – old school cinematography combined with digital effects make the spectator believe that everything he sees is real – incredible professionalism in times when CGI takes over cinema. Building the sets, costumes, make-up, practical effects and a slight touch of technology in the post - production is why Del Toro’s movies are not only once nominated for an Academy Award.
Hundreds of artists participate in the process of creating the visual effects in a Del Toro’s motion picture which allows us to see how well developed the production design is, leaving absolutely no holes in the fictional universe.
The costume contribution to the style is truly unique. Series of detailed costumes are made for the actor who plays all the director’s monsters – Doug Jones (The faun, The amphibian man, Ape Sapien, even the ghost of Edith’s mother from Crimson Peak). We can see the director’s love for the unknown creatures of the deep ancient forests or waters – the faun, the amphibian man. Another unusual choice of monsters, which Doug Jones plays wonderfully.
Combining the costume and make-up work with the computer rendered face of the Amazon God (The Shape of Water, 2018) creates an absolute feeling of realism – a God that came to life in the hands of artists. The effects in these movies are a huge contribution to the VFX world, in general, no matter exactly in which form they come in.
Fluids
Fluids are of great significance in life itself and if they are interpreted correctly in a movie, they can help fill the grand space of the screen. Let’s take what a character drinks in the movie – if the character drinks whiskey it gives him a sort of class and maturity. He’s most likely to have a strong temper and deep, hidden secrets and an inside battle of good and evil – just like Hellboy (2004). If the character drinks milk, otherwise it infantilises him, or even perverse his personality traits. This is the case of the general from Pan’s Labyrinth (2006) – a vile, loathsome and obnoxious character - the man, whom the spectator loves to hate. Even so, if the character is a kid, the drinking of milk shows the purity of the child’s heart, mind and body. An untouched innocence, coming to life due to some symbols, infatuating his real time qualities.
In this scene Ofelia (Pan’s Labyrinth, 2006) is in the monster of the third trial’s lair. She was warned by the faun not to eat or drink anything, no matter how delicious it looks. This is a reference to the myth of Persephone and the Underworld from the Greek mythology, who is tricked by Hades to eat some pomegranate’s fruits (which are also red and a symbol of marriage), after which she can’t leave the realm of the Underworld. This reference tells us that something horrible may come to pass to Ofelia is she succumb to her gluttony.
Although talking about fluids, we can’t forget to mention blood, water and body fluids. In a Del Toro’s movie it’s most likely that the monsters are inhabiting a tank of water, or are born out of alien looking eggs, that break and leave tons of biology fluids.
Blood is the thing that makes us alive and the director plays carefully with this precise symbol. Blood is an unchangeable part of the reality and every beginning and end is covered in blood. In the symbolism of water, we see the substance, through which we pass from one realm to another. The hero in Del Toro’s movies falls in a water tank, symbolising his baptism, his catharsis and renewal. It is a symbol of his only choice – to continue his path, no matter what lies ahead.
The wall in this scene from the Devil’s backbone (2001) is particularly important, because it was a hint from the director to the spectators for what is hiding in the water tank down the stairs. Look closely at the wall and you will see the texture reminding us of waves. Waves that will lead the protagonist to unexpected revelations. Hints like these are often used in Del Toro’s movies, because they are a sort of an experiment for the spectator to reveal the mystery himself.
The creation of the monster
The process of creating a monster is definitely not an easy job, if the goal is for the monster to be both truly scary and fascinating. As the monsters are the basis of Del Toro’s movies, we must not forget their changing form, that gives a touch of drama and deepens the plot of the movie.
Mythological creatures. Insects. Machines. Ancient Gods. The transformation of the creatures.
In this scene from Pan’s Labyrinth (2006) we see the fairy that comes to Ofelia in the form of an insect and transforms in the shape from the girl’s book. This is a contribution to the magical world the girl gets in, contradicting the atmosphere of World War II. We need this contrast in order to tell a good story, as the director himself says.
What the de-aging of the faun means in Pan’s Labyrinth (2006). In the beginning of the movie we see him, one with the portal, awakened by Ofelia’s (princess Moana) return. What can this reverse time tell us for the character – that he is on a mission to help the princess and step by step, he becomes alive again, not only a memory, whispered by the trees. As he says when the girl asks him for his name: “I’ve had many names. Old names, which only the wind and the trees remember.”
This leads us to his ancient existence, suggesting that his youth is long forgotten, but as we see in the course of the movie, his mission is what brings him life, telling us that he is one of the protagonists in the story, even if he seems cruel at some moments.
In a recent tweet, Guillermo explains the symbolism of the Pale Man (Pan’s Labyrinth, 2006), connecting him to every institution, feeding on the helpless. Here, we can’t forget to mention the resemblance to Pink Floyd’s monster from The Wall, consuming all the youngsters in a quest for power. Another folklore reference fights its way in here – for the one consuming his enemy’s flesh, which enhances his strength, prolonging his existence, which I dare not to call life. A creature like this is evil in its core and knows no good, it cannot have a light aspect, because it’s filled with darkness. A spawn of evil – an ultimate villain. What is interesting here, is that the villain in Pan’s Labyrinth (2006), is actually even worse than this creature. He is a human, inside whom there is no humanity. A creature can be excused if we assume it has no soul, only an evil core, but a man cannot. Because the man makes choices that lead him to be what he is.
Guillermo del Toro presents us with an incredible mixture of adventure, human featured monsters, love, death, mythology and a journey. His universe is not average, but an odd, dark looking Wonderland, that hides danger in every corner. The quest is to find what makes us human. What hides beneath the mask?
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