ipl-logo

Guillermo Del Toro's Film The Shape Of Water

726 Words3 Pages

Guillermo del Toro recently won Golden Lion award at the Venice Film Festival for his latest film The Shape of Water - a great achievement in a career of this 52-year old Mexican filmmaker who, as a kid, only wanted to make monster films.

A cross between a creature feature and a fairy tale, The Shape of Water tells a story of a mute cleaning woman named Elisa (Sally Hawkins) who falls in love with a humanoid sea creature imprisoned in a science facility ran by the belligerent Colonel Strickland (Michael Shannon). Del Toro 's film is heavily indebted to a 1954 Universal monster film Creature from the Black Lagoon, where a creature like the one in The Shape of Water hunts down a group of scientists in the Amazon. In the Black Lagoon 's two sequels - Revenge of the Creature (1955) and The Creature Walks Among Us (1956) …show more content…

The film takes place in Spain in 1944 where fascist forces of General Francisco Franco have won the brutal civil war only five years ago. Ofelia (Ivana Baquero) is a sensitive girl whose sickly mother (Ariadna Gil) just married brutal and selfish Captain Vidal (Sergi López). Ofelia discovers an old labyrinth garden where she meets Pan (again, Doug Jones) and undergoes a quest to gain immortality. Del Toro here deliberately muddles the easy dichotomy between prosaic reality and magical world of make-believe. Ofelia 's real-life story plays out like a Grimm fairy tale of abused children and wicked step-parents. Meanwhile, the world of the labyrinth is far from an escapist fantasy - it is full of dangers and real-life tragic consequences for Ofelia. But yet again, true monsters aren 't the ones who simply follow their nature but the low-ranking army officer of a burgeoning fascist police-state who uses his power to hurt and kill those even less powerful than him, even when he claims to care about. Pan 's Labyrinth is an unsettling, yet undoubtedly beautiful and heartfelt

Show More
Related

  • Invisible City Directed By Hubert Davis

    162 Words  | 1 Pages

    Invisible City (2009) is a documentary directed by Hubert Davis that follows two teenage boys journey as their community in Toronto's Regent Park undergoes a housing revitalization project. Davis followed the lives of Mickey and Kendall for three years exploring how they are individually affected by structural changes within their neighborhood. The boys are African-Canadian and due to their ethnicity experienced racial discrimination and segregation (Davis, 2009). Regent Park was a community that consisted of a vast number of people that are lower income and living in poverty (Davis, 2009). The communities geographical location placed Mickey and Kendall at a greater risk of engaging in law-violating behaviors (Davis, 2009).

    Read More

  • El Laberinto Del Fauno Analysis

    1963 Words  | 8 Pages

    El laberinto del fauno (2006) is a fantasy film written and directed by Guillermo Del Toro in 2006. It is set in 1944 Francoist Spain where Ofelia (Ivana Baquero) and her pregnant mother move in with the Falangist Captain Vidal; Ofelia’s new stepfather and soon to be father of her half-brother. This essay will seek to explore how the film’s violence is meticulously portrayed as a masculine trait. It could be argued, that because violence is depicted as a masculine attribute, the main character that conveys and reinforces this concept is Captain Vidal (Sergi López). However, characters such as Carmen (Ariadna Gil) further reinstate this feature by complying and being ‘domesticated’.

    Read More

  • Summary Of My Creature From The Black Lagoon Stephen King

    161 Words  | 1 Pages

    The message Stephen King is trying to convey with, “ My Creature from the Black Lagoon,” is that the effect of fantasy is based on the viewer. In the writing King talks about how children are more affected by horror movies and fantasy than adults, because they have a much more capable imagination. On the flip side of this coin King talks about how adults are affected by things like Disney movies. What you can interpret from this information is that life affects us in such a way that we are no longer capable of letting the movie trick us. The tone used in this writing is determined, as he is determined to let the movie trick him, as it did when he was young.

    Read More

  • Adonis Creed Analysis

    797 Words  | 4 Pages

    The plot Where it took place and when it took place Where are the

    Read More

  • Jaws Cinematography Analysis

    709 Words  | 3 Pages

    This essay will examine the functions and effects of cinematography in Steven Spielberg’s Jaws Jaws follows the police chief Brody, along with scientist Hooper and shark hunter Quint, in their attempt to protect the town of Amity against a Great White shark that is terrorising beachgoers. It was adapted from Peter Benchley’s 1974 novel of the same name. Following its release in summer 1975, Jaws became the highest grossing film As Jaws was one of the first motion pictures to be shot partially on water, the production came across issues with the prosthetic shark, and as a result, Spielberg decided to only suggest the appearance of the shark as often as possible, as opposed to showing the prosthetic body during attacks. This sparing use of the prosthetic, and primary focus instead on creating suspense and dread without the shark visibly present, proved to be an inspired decision, as Jaws is considered a pioneering achievement in the horror genre.

    Read More

  • Juxtaposition In The Film Pan's Labyrinth

    1340 Words  | 6 Pages

    This is especially the case in Guillermo del Toro’s film Pan’s Labyrinth, which juxtaposes fairy tale elements with aspects of Franco era Spain to explore some of its realities in greater detail. By comparing the evils of Vidal and of Ofelia’s fantasy world Del Toro presents the atrocities of Franco era Spain’s Fascist leadership. By contrasting the shapes, colors, and cleanliness of the two worlds, he presented some of the more basic principles of the Fascist regime, and by placing symbolic objects throughout the film, Del Toro emphasizes their symbolic importance to Vidal and again to the Fascist regime. Even with all of these comparisons, however, it is still impossible to determine for a fact if Ofelia’s make believe world was real or

    Read More

  • Violence In Pan's Labyrinth

    1617 Words  | 7 Pages

    Men, women, and children were caught in the crossfire and sometimes even deliberately murdered by both sides. del Toro does not sugarcoat the brutality of the Spanish Civil War as even the first image the audience is shown is of a dying and bloody child. Indeed, much of the violence in the movie is experienced by the young and innocent. In The Transnational Fantasies of Guillermo del Toro, it is suggested that the violence in the movie “is commensurate with the brutality of certain fairy tales in their original form and also with a realist vision of the cruelty of war that uses the figure of the child to create greater empathy and affect the spectator”(Davies 192). While much of the cruelty in Pan’s Labyrinth is very graphic, it is the explicit nature of what is experienced by children that makes the movie hard to watch for some.

    Read More

  • The Role Of Women In Pan's Labyrinth

    879 Words  | 4 Pages

    With this, some of their rights were being violated and those rights are slowly starting to perish. Pan’s Labyrinth is one of Guillermo Del Toro’s greatest masterpiece and it shows the reality about how unfair and cruel society can treat women. This movie depicts that society can do a lot of things that can hurt a woman’s dignity but it also showed us what a true woman is and what are they really capable of doing. In the movie, there are three main female characters in the story namely Ofelia, Carmen and Mercedes.

    Read More

  • Subcultural Norms In The Hunger Games

    1494 Words  | 6 Pages

    The film takes place in the nation of Panem which is divided into thirteen districts. However, district thirteen was abolished due to rebellion. As punishment

    Read More

  • Christopher Nolan's Under The Eye Of The Clock

    157 Words  | 1 Pages

    In the excerpt “Under the Eye of the Clock” by Christopher Nolan, talks about the paralyzed boy joseph who is overwhelming with muscle pains. The excerpt develops an idea that tell us that no matter what the situation is, there is always hope. According to text, “Typing festered hope” (line 20). The author of the excerpt, means to tell us that you should never think that, you will not able to do anything, since you are paralyzed; there is always hope and you should wait for right time to come. In addition to that, author also says “great spasms gripped him rigid and sent his simple nod into a farcical effort which ran to each and every one of his limbs” (line 24 and 25).

    Read More

  • The Hunger Games Vs Handmaid's Tale Essay

    480 Words  | 2 Pages

    Dystopian literature has become more common in today’s society. Some of the top book series are about dystopias. One of the top dystopian book trilogies is “The Hunger Games” by Suzanne Collins. While most dystopian novels are similar in some aspects, “The Hunger Games” is specifically relatable to Margaret Atwood’s novel, “The Handmaid’s Tale”. Collins describes the society of Panem in “The Hunger Games”.

    Read More

  • The Maze Runner Analysis

    1048 Words  | 5 Pages

    The maze runner is a young adult, science fiction and post-apocalyptic book that has the purpose of introducing the reader into a fantasy world where things can get a little out of control and surviving remains the main focus. The story starts mysteriously with the title character named Thomas, a teenage boy, who wakes up with no memory after arriving with a moving box into a Glade surrounded by a Maze. The book explores different psychological stages of the characters and help up understand how it is like to live with no memory and surrounded by people you do not know. The author, a young man also, has a particular interest in adventure and survival plots due to their excitement upon readers. The author came with the idea of writing a novel involving a crowd of teenagers trapped into an unbreakable Maze filled with hideous creatures while he was dreaming.

    Read More

  • Pan's Labyrinth Essay

    975 Words  | 4 Pages

    Pan’s Labyrinth (2006), directed by Guillermo del Toro, is a gorgeously realised tale of fantasy and horror, set against the backdrop of post-Civil War Spain. The story follows a young girl, Ofelia, who travels to the countryside with her ill mother to live with her new stepfather, Vidal, a captain in Franco’s Fascist army. The film explores how Ofelia uses her imagination as a copying mechanism to deal with the monstrosities of her reality as well as to interpret the horrific events unfolding around her. Del Toro employs a number of cinematic devices including cinematography, sound and editing to effectively draw parallels between Ofelia’s reality and imagination, ultimately creating a powerful film that condemns the nature of Fascism.

    Read More

  • Symbolism In The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas

    519 Words  | 3 Pages

    In Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas, the setting takes place right by the sea in a city named Omelas. In the city of Omelas the people are very mature, intelligent, and live complex lives. The citizens of Omelas tend to be happy, and their happiness is based on the misery of a mistreated child. The child lives under Omelas in a dreadful cellar. In the cellar, the child lives in a small room and is surrounded by its own waste.

    Read More

  • The Shape Of Water Analysis

    798 Words  | 4 Pages

    The film encapsulates the principle that there are men who can be monstrous, and monsters who can demonstrate great humanity, with themes like ‘the monster is us’ and ‘embracing the otherness’ at play. The Shape of Water serves as a love letter to cinema, wearing its influences on its sleeve. Del Toro borrows the framework from cult horror classics such as Frankenstein, King Kong, and The Creature from the Black Lagoon; the ending of the film is a clear subversion of the latter’s, where the narrative ends in triumph instead of calamity. Instead of viewing them thematically as monster versus men, del Toro sees these films as tragic love stories of misunderstood creatures. “I thought it was a beautiful image.

    Read More

More about Guillermo Del Toro's Film The Shape Of Water

Open Document