As someone who talks and thinks and weirdly too often dreams in a foreign language
I'm fascinated by the impact the set of words we use to communicate has in the way we think.
It's one of the reasons this series came about.
I set out to explore this idea of a director who grew up with one language
but now works in another.
And see what would be different.
But I found is that when they make movies all their language and identity do shape the way they write and direct their stories
They ultimately communicate through the universal language of film.
After three directors, I'd say Guillermo del Toro is the one who speaks to the broadest audience
because he's fluent in a second universal language.
In a recent interview, del Toro said his movies called 'The Shape of Water'
It comes in a thousand shapes but in the end you recognize it
All of del Toro's movies are sprinkled with allegories like this with metaphors and symbolism
So you get an idea of how often he does it. He's less careful concerning the villain of 'Shape of Water.'
Even his final arc, much like Captain Vidal in 'Pan's Labyrinth,' is symbolic of the way he lived
His destiny fits into del Toro's overall thesis of battle between those who have a voice
and those who do not.
The allegories del Toro employs have grown increasingly
stronger throughout his career. In 'Cronos,' his first movie, one could easily miss that Jesus Gris represents an
anti-capitalist force in the battle against the looming invasion in the wave of the North American Free Trade Agreement.
Del Toro's Spanish-language films were rarely criticized for their bluntness
but plenty of critics jumped at the opportunity to point out that the subtext in 'The Shape of Water' is right there on the surface
And that's true. It's a story of oppressors versus oppressed, which is made pretty obvious by its troupe of society's outcasts
When I'm not sure is true is that del Toro is at any fault here either.
There's a time for subtlety and then there's 2018 America.
If there is a tumor in our public sphere like del Toro suggests, subtlety doesn't seem to cut it anymore.
The over-the-top allegory might just be the film therapy that the doctor ordered
"This is America."