I’ve been eagerly awaiting Guillermo Del Toro’s The Shape Of Water for quite some time. What little we’ve seen of the project affirms Del Toro’s defiance of the postulation that substance and style can rarely be congruent. Lining the core of this unlikely love story between a deaf custodian and a Lovecraftian sea creature is a visually indulgent horror film, yet the genres don’t seem to be at odds with each one another. At Deadline’s Contenders event, Del Toro shed light on his process, particularly the things he values as one of the industry’s last auteurs:
“I started the design three years before production and funded the R&D to design because we were not designing a monster, we were designing a living man. When I make a movie like this, I invest my salary — not only because I’m a bad businessman but also I’m an art collector. I create a terrarium so that the creature can exist in that terrarium.”
Del Toro doesn’t forfeit storytelling to revel in his love of “creatures.” The two go hand in hand. He attributes his affinity for “monsters” to their potential for poinant commentary. “They’re a spiritual cosmology.” He recalls seeing Frankenstein’s monster for the first time and thinking: “This was a messiah I can dedicate my life to. They are a thing of beauty for me. If you see my movies, monstrosity exist in the human heart, not in appearance.”
Doug Jones, famous for playing the erudite amphibian Abe Sabien in Del Toro’s Hellboy films, will be playing the nameless Amphibious Man opposite the wonderful Sally Hawkins.
The Shape Of Water isn’t just a monster flick, nor it a repackaged romance tale. It’s aim is much higher. As Del Toro so succinctly puts it: “We live in times that are permeated by hate and fear … and I wanted to make the audience little by little fall in love with the other.”
We eagerly await the release of The Shape of Water on Dec. 8.
