thread to discuss Guillermo del Toro's THE SHAPE OF WATER

Just premiered at Venice Film Festival, getting excellent reviews
Mute Sally Hawkins, interspecies love, discuss here!

https://io9.gizmodo.com/the-first-reviews-for-guillermo-del-toros-the-shape-of-1798667636

trailer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFYWazblaUA

oooh i would like to see this

This seems like a giant fuck you to Mike Mignola from GdT, an Abe Sapien origin pic in all but name (and treading ground covered in the Abe Sapien ongoing book) even starring Doug Jones as Not Abe.

yeah that is a little... odd

still this does look really promising - sally hawkins is fantastic

i had to google Abe Sapien but now that i have, i found that this theory is popular among youtube commenters and conspiracy theorists

these are my people

I have not seen either of the Hellboy movies or know much about Hellboy but when I saw this trailer a few weeks ago, I was initially surprised to learn that another Hellboy sequel was on the way until I realized that's not what this is. I agree, it's weird.

i watched hellboy on an airplane iirc and i don't remember much about it. it never crossed my mind that this movie has anything to do with that series/franchise/story but obviously i am not into that universe or whatever

THE SHAPE OF WATER reminded me a lot of The Iron Giant, but if Hogarth and the Giant were super horny for each other. Wish i liked it more.

— david ehrlich (@davidehrlich) September 3, 2017

i loved the hellboy movies, have not read the comics, still think this movie looks beautiful & interesting

re del Toro's past films... RIP Federico Luppi

http://www.vulture.com/2017/10/guillermo-del-toro-federico-luppi-collaboration.html

He was really good in Cronos, probably his second best film after Pan's Labyrinth.

Enjoyed the hell out of this, but really am not familiar with the rest of del Toro's work. Saw Pans Labyrinth maybe ten years ago. Maybe saw Devil's Backbone but can't quite remember. Fell asleep about 10 minutes into Pacific Rim. Anything notably great or to avoid?

no, on either count.

I like Cronos a lot.

Aldo otm upthread, that's my only real caveat going into this

Some parts of this felt a bit routine but the love story is so beautiful it doesn't matter.

Pacific Rim is onetwo of my favorite big screen experiences of the last decade, would love to catch it again.

I loved this. I love Doug Jones.

liked this quite a bit.

Oh I had never heard of it but that seems nice !
Is it out already ?

By the way, otm this :

Pacific Rim is onetwo of my favorite big screen experiences of the last decade

Oh, I just checked, it will be released in February in France...

Loved crimson peak. Fantasy horror romance on the level of classic burton, set design was top drawer

This was ok but there’s such a disconnect between the romantic, fanciful tone the movie aims for and the fact that it’s about a goddamn slimy fish monster.

There’s barely even a buildup to the romance! Sally Hawkins is making fuck eyes almost as soon as she sees the thing. Does she have a fetish for nicitating membranes or something?

Also can you imagine how ungodly this thing must smell?

That’s the whole thing of it, kinda

Ahah indeed the thing seems pretty ugly. Bot sure about the smell though. Do Dolphins smell ?

the only thing that bugged me is the over-reliance on destroying the myth of the innocence of the 60s.

I adored Sally Hawkins, esp the "You'll never knowwwwwww" sequence

That’s the whole thing of it, kinda

― .oO (silby), Sunday, December 24, 2017 11:00 AM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Oh I get that it’s supposed to be an unlikely/forbidden romance but IMO the creature just doesn’t have enough personality to make it work. It’s too animalistic.

I buy her having empathy for it as a suffering creature. But how does that immediately translate into “gimme the d”?

I think the movie might have worked more if Sally Hawkins’s character had been one of the scientists studying the creature.

I adored Sally Hawkins, esp the "You'll never knowwwwwww" sequence

― fuck you, your hat is horrible (Neanderthal), Sunday, 24 December 2017 13:42 (three minutes ago) Permalink

I agree, despite my criticisms of the movie she is very good in it.

The creature itself is the weak link for me. I just can’t buy anyone warming up to that thing. The movie tries to have it both ways, excusing its murder of a cat with “it’s a wild creature” while telling us it’s this wonderful misunderstood scaly stud muffin.

I think the obvious attraction are their similarities. both of them take degrees of abuse for how they're 'different' from society (and she witnesses how poorly monster-boy is treated from the onset of his arrival). both of them are largely socially isolated as a result of it.

I don't view it as purely sexual at the beginning - she seems to look on him like an owner looks at an adorable dog that they just purchased at first. The "fuck eyes" seem to come more when she realizes it can communicate back and likes music etc....

xpost

I do wish Michael Shannon wasn't playing his 100th iteration of "morally corrupt baddie". his making unwanted sexual advances to Elisa kind of comes out of nowhere and seems to exist only to say "see, this guy is a shitbeak"

Yeah, the movie spends an awful lot of time with him. Did we need to see his home life? It’s an odd choice because those scenes don’t really illuminate anything about him.

the romance was cute and occasionally delightful and i was so glad they went there with the sex (and made it an ongoing thing) because that part was like, cool, i haven't seen this before in a movie! was way less interested in the michael shannon stuff cause that's pretty familiar territory. woulda been more interesting if he was mildly sympathetic to what the scientists had to say but ultimately more driven by pleasing the higher-ups. i like that the russian spy subplot was fused together with the scientist-thinks-we-should-study-it-not-kill-it plot. sucks that scientist guy gives them up for no reason at all, and that octavia spencer's never-before-seen husband also cracks and sells them out... felt like forced plot mechanics to get us to a final confrontation. i dunno it was sweet and kinda interesting with some occasionally good use of the period and its politics to draw out some of the themes - better than your average B movie?

Not great.

i was so glad they went there with the sex (and made it an ongoing thing) because that part was like, cool, i haven't seen this before in a movie!
same. my mom asked me why it was rated R and i was like "probably nudity and masturbation?" none of the sexuality between elisa and the sea beast was crass at all; she didn't hesitate when the sea beast showed interest in her, but we don't really know that much about her or what goes on in her head. the idea that she would be portrayed as an overtly sexual being at all is interesting to me.

my main complaint about this movie was how her name was elisa but everyone said eliza?! that seemed weird to me. either call her eliza or say it elisa. i don't understand that choice.

it is a petty complaint
also i love sally hawkins

Sally Hawkins was new to me and great in this. I also have an endless appetite for Michael Shannon playing an unmitigated prick.

Also p much everyone of my generation definitely wants to fuck monsters if twitter is to be believed, monster-fucking is in

http://images.sequart.org/images/Neonomicon-The-Deep-One-and-Merril-Brears.jpg

the only thing that bugged me is the over-reliance on destroying the myth of the innocence of the 60s.

Just completing the work Mad Men did. But if they hammered on it once....

Also, the idea of monsters going after human females is the subtext to a lot of the classic horror movies (possibly even text, depending on how you read Frankenstein or Dracula's Daughter). A human female reciprocating, or even initiating such attractions, is a logical extension.

Sure, it’s also the subtext of Creature From the Black Lagoon, which is one of the obvious inspirations for this movie.

Reversing that trope is a good premise that could work, I just don’t think it’s convincingly executed well here. YMMV.

idk it's one of those where there's so MUCH business that at first appears to be outside the main thrust of the movie (fish man romance) that i sort of have to say, maybe i'm misreading what the main thrust of the movie is. more broadly of course it's about difference/othering and the narrow intolerant values of the time When America Was Great Before (seen in treatment of the creature, of nonwhite americans, of shannon's wife, of the gay neighbor), and the fish man saga lets us encounter all of these with the romance just being the most central of those (and the one that leads to a happy ending for one and letting the others feel they scored a victory for minorities and alternative lifestyles).

this falls apart just a little with the red scare, which is one critical thing that might make it into feel-good pop histories of the period ("mccarthyism was bad"); here it's not really framed as an attack on difference or on the Old Left - an actual 100% guilty russian spy is detected and defeated. he's a good guy for our purposes but this bit feels not quite as well worked out; it's mostly an excuse for a more cartoonish "bloviating military guy, obsessed with communists, misses the actual rescuers of the creature right under his nose." i'm okay with that sometimes (see The Iron Giant) but here it felt a bit more off-theme, there just to keep the plot going.

pretty sure Creature from the Black Lagoon was a well-documented explicit inspiration for this

also I was going to post a picture of monster-human female sex from Possession but they were all too lurid -- that's what I think separates this movie from other movies featuring this sort of...odd relationship. there was really nothing too lurid about their relationship. i'd venture it was sweeter than your average relationship between 2 humans.

They spent 3 YEARS making sure he had a sexy ass. This is real art 😩💦💦 pic.twitter.com/q4I0QkF7Vp

— 💙Waiting4My🐟Fishman💙 (@rawrburd) December 25, 2017

V important bc apparently Doug Jones doesn’t have a natural ass to speak of so there’s always the question of whether his character should have an ass

http://www.vulture.com/2017/12/how-doug-jones-became-guillermo-del-toros-favorite-monster.html

Nice profile of Jones

The Shape of Water was caesar salad with too much parmesan cheese and the wine not cold enough but served with a smile.

Honestly I'm not sure I did either. But I was still immersed in the movie's universe and the conflict.

xp

what else is worth checking out immediately? obviously PL and The Devil's Backbone right? heard great things about Pacific Rim when it came out but I missed it in theaters and feel like that one would really suffer from a home viewing setup

― flappy bird, Thursday, February 22, 2018 5:58 PM (twenty-one seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yeah his Spanish-language flicks are all good: PL, Devil’s Backbone, Cronos. Mimic is not so great but it’s a fairly watchable sci-fi/horror flick. The Hellboy movies are fun (and feature a mich more likable fish man). Haven’t seen Blade 2. Pacific Rim is essentially a live-action Saturday morning cartoon, which is what I liked about it. Crimson Peak is alright.

oh shit i forgot about Blade II! I love that movie!!!!! a theater is doing a 35mm double feature of both Blades really soon, planning on going to Blade II (a very rare sequel that's vastly superior to the original)

There is no such thing as an alpha cat, and they do not hunt as packs.

there's no such thing as an alpha wolf either

but there is such a thing as a smelly cat

But not as smelly as dogs! It's quite remarkable how few cats smell bad, compared to dogs. They've really got the grooming system down.

xpost Yeah, I like the revised conclusion that what we used to consider alpha wolves are actually what might better be termed "parents." That said, wolves hunt in packs with leaders and have an established territory they defend. I've heard the way cats share territory as more akin to roommates or time shares; they sometimes get along, sometimes don't, and generally work out who can be where and when, even if it is the same territory.

There is no way that fish man did not stink to high heaven.

Did I mention how much better I thought the movie would have been had they not given the fish man magic powers, or at least saved it until the end and left things ambiguous? One of the many strengths of the (vastly superior, imo) Pan's Labyrinth is how much of the magic is ambiguous, perhaps just a fantasy for the girl to escape to. As opposed to a literal fish god who restores her gills and takes her back downstream.

i don't think "restores" is necessarily true
it's one interpretation but when i saw it i was under the impression that it wasn't even clear if she was alive or dead at the end, or had been turned into a sea creature or was dreaming in the afterlife or what?
it didn't matter to me really

picking apart the nature/"health" of their relationship is sure to ruin the movie/story
no love story can withstand relentless nitpicking

Tell my wife that etc

If she had been pulled into the water when she was near-death, then that could have imbued the moment with some poetic ambiguity. Did he save her or was this her fantasy? But after going out of their way to show his magic powers, and going out of their way to repeatedly bring attention to her scars - she could have been just mute with no backstory and nothing would have changed - there's really no way to take it but literally, imo. Also explains her instant apparently biological attraction to the fish guy.

You know, while we are talking fish attraction, there's a weird fleeting moment that caught my attention. When Michael Shannon went home and his wife immediately jumped his bones, one of the first things she does is take a deep sniff of his (intact) hand, which I took as a subtle indication that maybe some ladies just like the fish pheromones.

but there is such a thing as a smelly cat

what ARE they feeding it?!

Cats only smell bad in the mouth (smells like meat) and the butt (smells like poop)

ahhhh the tube of filth

Garbage in, garbage out.

https://i.imgur.com/q43Rd7N.png

On the topic of kids seeing this: we took our almost-12 year old to it last night. He still acts like he's freaked out by basic nudity and I did feel a bit bad about the Michael Shannon / wife scene; our son gets overly dramatic and hides his eyes, I can't tell if that's for our benefit or genuine or what. But in the end the only thing that really bothered him a lot was the cat-eating. I think that was more traumatic than anything else. He said he thought it was a good movie though. I loved it myself.

oh, and rightly he hated Michael Shannon's character. I mean sure, this character is like every other Michael Shannon character and is over the top in his awfulness...but my son (or anyone else unfamiliar with that actor's previous roles) doesn' tknow that. Sometimes you really need a non-negotiable baddie in a movie.

otm!

I liked this but I thought they really overdid telling us how these characters are outsiders and Shannon saying out loud "you really are a god" at the end was too much.

Even though it's an unusual film in some ways, the general trajectory was too predictable and it needed a few more surprises.

Highlights were Sally Hawkins and the colours (it really was like a Jeunet film) and the pee jokes. Really want to know if Hawkins used a body double and crafty cgi.

I have FINALLY watched this (better late than never...) !
Really liked it. It was funny, sweet and beautiful visually.
The story was a bit simplistic and predictable + many parts of the plot didn't really work (for instance her plan to evac the monster was silly since she could never have opened his collar without the russian doctor) but since it's a kind of tale, it's not the most important, I guess.
oh and isn't it obvious that she's pregnant after their first intercourse (the drops of water on the bus window describing a fertilization) ?
Which would also confirm that they are more or less of the same species (which would explain their instant initial attraction)...

Still haven't seen, I guess this will be library DVD as well.

Adam Nayman's seems to be the most pedigreed pan:

http://cinema-scope.com/features/the-uses-of-disenchantment-guillermo-del-toros-the-shape-of-water/

Yeah, the story and plotting let this down a bit - it felt baggy in parts, and the tension was built slightly inexpertly.

Visuals, tone, characters and performances all great on the other hand.

Heh yeah her "plan" is defiantly half-arsed, like neither characters or writers have bothered to think it through - this high-security facility should prob have considered installing at least one security camera in the actual room where the fish man is kept, for one thing

It's not really a script kinda film (see: pie shop, see also: everything)

oh and isn't it obvious that she's pregnant after their first intercourse (the drops of water on the bus window describing a fertilization) ?
Which would also confirm that they are more or less of the same species (which would explain their instant initial attraction)...

this made me lol but anything that is open to interpretation is more interesting than something that isn't imo :)

eheh, after the "raindrops on the bus' window" scene, I told that theory to my wife and she was like "wha ?"
to me it was so obvious : they just had intercourse, she's all happy on the bus then close up on the raindrops looking like sperm cells rushing towards an egg then a zygote which starts to divide !

I actually quite enjoyed this second time around, which was surprising because I *really* took against it first time round and only gave it another shot because all the positivity made me think I must have missed something, somewhere.

Weird gratuitous nudity with bad guy wife, when she gets her boob out to tempt him to sex then has her bra firmly on while they're actually doing it. All the stuff with the main character seemed entirely in context, although weird because I've most recently seen her as the mum in Paddington 2.

This was the most teal film ever though, right?

If "teal" is a euphemism for "overrated" then, yeah.

No, actual teal as in teal & orange teal. It felt like every single surface up to the point where he gets his new car (also teal, in a teal showroom) was teal (or, at a pinch, duck egg blue).

yeah, definitely teal but for once it was on purpose and related to the story (mostly aquatic).
I loved the design. It actually reminded me of an old video game : Bioshock !

Yeah, I kind of think Paddington would be a better mate than the fish.

Just wait for Paddington 3.

https://static.rogerebert.com/uploads/review/primary_image/reviews/ted-2012/hero_EB20120627REVIEWS120629973AR.jpg

very interesting (and wow "the wave" on the wall in her flat !)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0z7gJ5C1muo

That review linked above is pretty good.

Yeah, Nayman's Cinemascope review is excellent: informed, well-written and worth thinking about. I disagree in that I quite like the film and think it generally succeeds in its ambitions, but most of Nayman's criticisms hit their mark.

Mike d'Angelo otm:

Del Toro is the kind of auteur who conceives a cartoon sadist (every damn time, come to think of it) and decides to hire Michael freakin' Shannon for the role. Everything's a hat on a hat. It's like having someone yell "Surrender to the magic!" in your face for two hours. Maybe I could if you'd stop yelling.

Shannon has really got to stop playing the cartoon villains, or risk being Walkenized.

Or risk being someone who always gets paid?

at some point you've got enough

just get paid every other role

my red hook friends and acquaintances speak well of him as a neighbor and bar regular iirc

I'm sure he's a great person. But boy, he even looks more than a little like Walken, doesn't he?

Shannon works so much, didn't Walken's career really drop off in the 80s? I mean was he in everything after The Deer Hunter like Shannon has been in everything for the last... 4-5 years?

I hate the name of this movie, it just screams oscar bait you will forget about in 10 years.

Walken starred in The Dead Zone and A View To A Kill in '83 and '85, and some other pictures like Brainstorm that people probably expected to be slightly bigger than they were. It's only after that that his profile kinda dropped for a while. If you compare it to Shannon's side by side I feel like there's about the same ratio of "big" movies and stuff most people haven't heard of or kind of forgot about already.

It's not godawful... I'm impressed that a film can win Best Picture while resurrecting Alice Faye's biggest hit AND featuring severed fingers, ripped-open throat, etc. And still come off like Amelie Does the Gill Man.

In a Details profile published in late '93, Walken said, "An agent can't say 'Get a Chris Walken type!' I am the type. I own it. Which means I will work for a very long time."

rote-type

That quote at the top - hat on top of a hat - is perfect. This whole film screams "I Love Monsters! And Whimsy! And! And!". Gimme "Pan's Labyrinth" any ol' day instead.