Film in competition, even if it is not surprising moves. The Mexican director: “In the real world the monsters wear jacket and tie”
It is a well -known and well -known story, yet with Frankenstein It is still crying, gently and angry. Perhaps because Guillermo del Toro He puts in the search for love and humanity of his creature, as well as in Victor’s torments, all his research started when he was seven, when he saw the first time the Frankenstein of 1931 by James Whale and, looking at the eyes of Boris Karloffthe creature, felt a thrill of recognition. Since then, Gothic horror has become its vocation. “When I saw Karloff I understood what was the appearance of a messiah,” says Del Toro al Lido. “Now I’m in post -birth depression,” he smiles with sympathy.
The Mexican director returns to the Venice Film Festival, where in 2017 he won the golden lion with The shape of the water – The Shape of Waterwho then earned four Oscars (including best direction and films). And he returns to talk about monsters, embracing that Frankenstein by Mary Shelley from which all her artistic exploration was born.
«Since I was a child, from my first super 8 film to date, I have dreamed of making two films, Pinocchio And Frankenstein», Toro’s reflections. «I thought they told the same story: what human is meaning, what it means to live a life marked by two forces such as eternity and death. I wanted to make Frankenstein as personal as possible ».
Pinocchio And Frankenstein They were two fundamental stories for Del Toro’s identity, they helped him understand and accept his humanity. In 2022 the animated film saw the light Pinocchio of Guillermo del Torowith subsequent triumph to the Oscars. Now with the film in competition in Venice 82 it is as if a cycle close.
“The DNA of a nineteen -year -old Englishman, Mary Shelley, filled himself with the DNA of a seven -year -old boy,” explains Del Toro, generous with journalists on Lido. «I am Victor Frankenstein. I am every character. This film is the result of a continuous dialogue with myselfin the period in which I learned what it means to be a child, when I then learned what it means to be a father, while I learned how to go on ».
After spending decades to elaborate his vision, Del Toro decided to set his own humanistic Gothic drama Against the background of the Crimea war, year 1855. To model his Prometheus, his perfect man who defeats death, the scientist Victor Frankenstein assembles parts of corpses of dead soldiers.
“Victor, Victor, Victor”, that powerful and cruel Victor creator whose name is repeated as a prayer from the creature has the face of Oscar Isaac. The creature, towering but not so frightening, has the body of Jacob Elordi1 meter and 96 in a decidedly propitious height to the role: on him 42 prostheses different. Only for the head and shoulders 12 overlapping silicone prostheses were needed.
«We thought of getting closer to Victor as an artist and not so much a scientist, in movements, in clothes. We have tried to represent outsiders», Says Isaac. “I have always felt like behind a glass. This film is very personal for me too. He wonders how to go on with a broken heart ».
In the Frankenstein Of Guillermo del Toro there are life and death, there are ferocious and poignant existential questions, there are refusal, the need for acceptance, the conflict between father and son. There is a lot of pain that only kindness can appease. There is love, invoked, denied, recovered. And finally hope.
“I bleed, I feel pain, suffering, it will never end,” says Elodi’s immortal and extraordinary creature. And again, addressed to Victor: “The man has only one remedy for such pain and you have removed it. Death”.
In the cast also my Goth, the Elizabeth who recognizes a pure soul in the creature, and Christoph Waltz, who plays Heinrich Harlander, the financier of the Frankenstein experiment.
The creature is the emotional engine of the film, which in fact has less vigor when that giant of scars and purity is not on stage.
Some sequences tighten the heart. The meeting of the creature with the deer in the woods is moving, like the one with the old blind man.
“Who are the monsters today? I believe that in the real world the monsters wearing jacket and tie, “says the screenwriter director.
Del Toro, such a human narrator, does not allow himself to be defeated by the monstrosity of humanity. His Frankenstein Finally, there is the finding between father and son. “According to Jean-Paul Sartre the next is hell. Instead I believe it is salvation».
