My Recent Fascination with Guillermo del Toro

The truth is that I never quite intended this fan-ship of this director.
It started with Pan's Labyrinth, which I reviewed in a previous post. I was in a movie watching mood and wanted to have a taste of what the upcoming Hobbit film would look like. After all, Pan was del Toro's dream project, and that would be an accurate indicator of what the LOTR prequel would be envisioned. The visuals on that film left me curious for more, so I checked out his two Hellboy movies from the library.

The first movie was distinctive for the fact that it was both filled with more wisecracks than Spider-man and was more darkly serious than the Dark Knight. Hellboy is a paradox in himself - a demon who was raised to be a Catholic. One of his superiors tells the crimson hero what a farce the whole thing is, "The joke is that no matter how many monsters you dispatch, there will always be one left - you." Even with this kind of animosity, Hellboy still perseveres in saving a world that would abhor him living on their street. By the end of the first film, the audience learns about Hellboy's fated destiny. His intended purpose is not beneign savior of mankind, but to be its end. The perennial question of the first movie was - What defines a man - does the origin determine the life, or can a man change himself to become something better?

The second movie picks up a little while after the first ended. Hellboy's girlfriend Liz (who happens to create and manipulate fire) is, kindly put, in a dysfunctional relationship with Hellboy. They like each other, but their affectionate love for one another is not made easy by Hellboy's hygiene and Liz's paranoia. Abe Sapien, a amphibious psychic, is Hellboy's best friend and voice of reason. He is the Blue to Hellboy's Red. They do field work together. Abe is the research, Hellboy the muscle. For being almost 60years old, Hellboy is very juvenile. What defines the second film is color and effects. While the first movie had the deeper plot, the second has a faster moving action flick feel to it. My favorite parts are the sword/spear dance by the pale elven prince (just fluid motion with a fatal brilliance) and the oddly fitting scene of "Can't smile without you" being belted out by Red and Blue. (You'll understand when you see it. It is an absurd moment next to the threat of the golden army, but is also needed to make it a... different and quirky superhero movie.)

Hellboy's monstrous opponents are imbued with the bizarre touch of del Toro's mind.
There is a world of difference between del Toro and Tim Burton. Burton is weird for the sake of being weird, his movies are humanity twisted to a bizarre cliff. Del Toro's bizarreness stems from his audience's divide from having never seen a creature like that before. Del Toro depicts the unnatural in its own habitat, behaving as if it knows that earth is not its natural home. (At least in the daytime - nighttime is different.) As Hellboy's adoptive father explains, "You know those things that go bump in the night? They exist - We at the B.P.R.D. are the ones that bump back."

Right now I am reading del Toro's Strain trilogy, a reenvisioning of a horror film staple. The first book, The Strain , centers around an airplane that shut down moments after landing. All the passengers are found dead, no trace of why - There is no evidence of trauma or panic involved. Even weider discoveries await the Center for Disease Control personnel as they notice subtle details. CDC officials designate the airplane disaster as a freak occurence; Abraham Setrikan is am elderly pawnshop owner who knows better. He survived more than the holocaust in a Nazi death camp. The head of the CDC Canary project, Ephraim Goodweather, senses something is amiss. This inquisitiveness may lose him his job, but along with Abraham, they are the world's best hope at defeating an ancient hunger from stealing millions of lives.

"To that Providence, my sons, I hereby commend you, and I counsel you by way of caution to forbear from crossing the moor in those dark hours when the powers of evil are exalted." - Dr. Mortimer (Hound of the Baskervilles, By Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Falchion