Guillermo del Toro’s The Shape of Water (2017): Trump Era Update of Cold War Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954) and Civil War Reckoning El laberinto del fauno (2006)

Elizabeth Jane Garrels

doi:10.5399/uo/peripherica.1.1.1

Abstract

Del Toro's latest film uses an amphibian creature dragged from the Amazon to reflect on the current situation of immigrants in this country, especially those from south of the border. In the process, the director uses Trump's nationalist and racist framing of the immigration debate as an opportunity to remake a film he has loved since childhood, Creature From the Black Lagoon. He places his film in 1962, during the Cuban Missile Crisis, but he insists that he has made a film that, although it takes place in the past, talks about the present. He also reworks a number of the themes and characterizations from his 2006 Spanish-language film El laberinto del fauno. Both films, one situated in Franco's Spain shortly after the Civil War, and the other, in J.F.K.'s Camelot, nonetheless present equally chilling visions of systems of political power that foster brutal, authoritarian, and unforgiving social behaviors.

Highlights

Volume 1, Issue 1 Garrels and characterizations from his 2006 Spanish-language film “El laberinto del fauno.” Both films, one situated in Franco’s Spain shortly after the Civil War, and the other, in J.F.K.’s Camelot, present chilling visions of systems of political power that foster brutal, authoritarian, and unforgiving social behaviors
A year later, and after one more Oscar to a Mexican director, the film deserves a different kind of reading
The other, a much more recent, and international production directed in Spanish by del Toro himself, is situated in Franco’s Spain in 1944, in the nasty aftermath of that country’s tragic civil war

Summary

Introduction

Volume 1, Issue 1 Garrels and characterizations from his 2006 Spanish-language film “El laberinto del fauno.” Both films, one situated in Franco’s Spain shortly after the Civil War, and the other, in J.F.K.’s Camelot, present chilling visions of systems of political power that foster brutal, authoritarian, and unforgiving social behaviors. 71, I loved Jack Arnold’s film, but even could not identify with del Toro’s childhood fantasy that the Creature should end up with the girl.

Results

Conclusion