The visual world of Guillermo del Toro

Guillermo del Toro – one of the biggest directors in the incredible world of sci-fi art cinema in the past twenty years. Known for his unique visual style, del Toro invites us to a whole new dimension, filled with tangles monsters, drawn out of a Lovecraft story. A spectacular experience.

Del Toro – a symbolist and surrealist with a flare of the dramatic, uses professionally the language of plasticity – shape, form, color and sound. Everything has it’s meaning and this is exactly why the whole plot is made into a dark sinister fairytale with strongly developed characters and perfectly suitable surroundings.

Let’s take Crimson Peak – a Victorian tale of love, passion, betrayal and horror. The main character, a girl named Edith, who wants to break the sexist behavior towards women, falls in love with a first eye clichéd character – a handsome young gentleman, expanding his business. Alltough things are not what they seem to be. The tale goes on, revealing a horrible sexual affair between brother and sister, who are 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.

What makes us relate to the characters – no matter if they are the heroes or the villains. The main character is always a pure of heart, with humanized features, slightly lost faith in the outside world due absence of love. A character in a 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 visual effects

Contrast. Strong light. Urbanized environment. Second World War, Spain. A reality representing the sur-reality underneath it. The spanish colors are present in every aspect, either it’s the soil shades - maroon, amber, brick, ocher, 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 thickness in the air, poisoning our minds, growing inside us like a live organism. Blue and green – the colors of coldness, deepness, but also purity. These colors 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. 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 the computer’s hand in the post production is why Del Toro’s movies are not only once nominated for an Academy award.

Seeing “Pan’s Labyrinth” or “The Devil’s backbone” we enter the world of the Second World War in Spain – poverty, terror and survival. A child, abandoned in a place of death has to find a way to survive and mature. The complete lifestyle change in the beginning of the film, allow the character to set foot on his journey and find his true purpose.

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 on 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. If the character drinks milk, otherwise it infantilizes him, or even perverse his personality traits. This is the case of the general from Pan’s labyrinth – a vile, loathsome and obnoxious character, developed to be the man, that 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 little symbols, infatuating his real time qualities.

All though talking about fluids, we can’t not 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 strange 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 world to another. The hero in del Toro’s movies falls in a water tank, symbolizing his baptism, his catharsis and renewal. It is a symbol of his only choice – to continue to go forward, no matter what lies ahead.

Mythological creatures. Insects. Machines. Ancient Gods. Violent environment. Huge stone houses and enormous basements filled with pipes and basins. The spot, where the screenplay takes place is either a city or a forest. But a city of mysteries, hidden under the train rails, fake government institutions, black markets and everything you can think of, connected to the world of darkness. What about the forest? The forest is a magical place. A place of piece and wonders. Or maybe that’s what you think in the beginning of the movie .The forest reveal itself to be dark and deep, a humanized organism, a reflection of who we are – our fears and hopes, our strengths and weaknesses.

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 if to find what makes us human. What hides beneath the mask.