{"id":6764,"date":"2018-03-02T10:31:13","date_gmt":"2018-03-02T10:31:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/asinovolablog.it\/?p=6764\/"},"modified":"2018-03-05T14:01:10","modified_gmt":"2018-03-05T14:01:10","slug":"the-shape-of-water-reviews","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/asinovolablog.it\/en\/the-shape-of-water-reviews\/","title":{"rendered":"The Shape of Water | The Reviews"},"content":{"rendered":"[vc_row type=”in_container” full_screen_row_position=”middle” scene_position=”center” text_color=”dark” text_align=”left” overlay_strength=”0.3″][vc_column column_padding=”no-extra-padding” column_padding_position=”all” background_color_opacity=”1″ background_hover_color_opacity=”1″ column_shadow=”none” width=”1\/1″ tablet_text_alignment=”default” phone_text_alignment=”default” column_border_width=”none” column_border_style=”solid”][vc_column_text]D<\/span><\/strong>id you cry like a baby while watching \u201cThe Shape of Water\u201d? Did you avert your eyes from Strickland\u2019s purulent fingers? Or were you overwhelmed by cynicism and yawned the whole time?
\nAnyway, Del Toro\u2019s last ordeal pays homage to the cinema of the Golden Age, a nostalgic nuance we no doubt appreciated. Is it enough to justify the four Oscars (Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Score, Best\u00a0Production Design)? The answer is given by our newsroom![\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row type=”in_container” full_screen_row_position=”middle” scene_position=”center” text_color=”dark” text_align=”left” top_padding=”20″ bottom_padding=”20″ overlay_strength=”0.3″][vc_column column_padding=”no-extra-padding” column_padding_position=”all” background_color_opacity=”1″ background_hover_color_opacity=”1″ column_shadow=”none” width=”1\/1″ tablet_text_alignment=”default” phone_text_alignment=”default” column_border_width=”none” column_border_style=”solid”][image_with_animation image_url=”6765″ alignment=”center” animation=”Fade In” img_link_large=”yes” box_shadow=”none” max_width=”100%”][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row type=”in_container” full_screen_row_position=”middle” scene_position=”center” text_color=”dark” text_align=”left” overlay_strength=”0.3″][vc_column column_padding=”no-extra-padding” column_padding_position=”all” background_color_opacity=”1″ background_hover_color_opacity=”1″ column_shadow=”none” width=”1\/1″ tablet_text_alignment=”default” phone_text_alignment=”default” column_border_width=”none” column_border_style=”solid”][divider line_type=”No Line” custom_height=”20″][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row type=”in_container” full_screen_row_position=”middle” scene_position=”center” text_color=”dark” text_align=”left” overlay_strength=”0.3″][vc_column column_padding=”padding-1-percent” column_padding_position=”all” background_color_opacity=”1″ background_hover_color_opacity=”1″ column_shadow=”none” width=”1\/1″ tablet_text_alignment=”default” phone_text_alignment=”default” column_border_width=”none” column_border_style=”solid”][vc_column_text]\n
The Shape of Water\u2013 seen by\u00a0Margherita Fontana<\/em><\/span><\/h5>\n

Baltimore during the Cold War. Elisa is a mute Cinderella, he is \u201cthe Creature\u201d, an aquatic monster abducted from Amazonia and kept prisoner by some really mean government operatives. The two look at each other, understand their feelings and fall in love. She saves him. He saves her. Happy ending. If you are drunk as Guillermo del Toro was when he first told the script, telling this story doesn\u2019t help you to seem less drunk: and I dare say that The Shape of Water is a film made for anyone who loves getting drunk with cinema, a story of love and salvation, masterfully acted and full of cinephile quotations. Yes, because the latest film by Guillermo del Toro pays tribute to many Hollywood classics, from musical comedies with Shirley Temple, to biblical dramas like The Story of Ruth<\/em>. Cinema itself is the film\u2019s main character: Elisa lives just above a movie theatre and spends her time with her neighbour Giles, gay and lonesome, watching old TV shows. According to del Toro, living in the expanded dimension of imagination allows to break boundaries to the point of mixing with the imagery itself: a passion for cinema\u2019s fantastic world can bring you to fall in love with one of its most absurd creatures (the \u201cmonster\u201d is the Gill-Man from Creature from the Black Lagoon<\/em>, a classic of 1954). With The Shape of Water<\/em> the director puts brilliantly together romance, old-style horror and sci-fi, a taste for splatter and black humour and a spy-story parody: the result is a film in equilibrium between poetry and entertainment, capable to make the public laugh and cry: a gift for everyone who shares with me the love for the cathartic power of (American and with a happy ending) cinema.[\/vc_column_text][divider line_type=”No Line” custom_height=”20″][vc_column_text]\n

The Shape of Water \u2013\u00a0seen by\u00a0Yorgos Kostianis<\/em><\/span><\/h5>\n

Hollywood\u2019s favourite fabulist, Guillermo Del Toro, is back behind the camera on a film bearing all the hallmarks of his unique directing style. His film takes place during the Cold War era and is structured around Elisa Esposito, \u201cthe princess without a voice\u201d who mops floors at the aeronautical research centre of Baltimore, OCCAM (perhaps an allusion to the famous razor?).
\nElisa leads a lonely and quiet life; watching her days go by in a humdrum, monotonous routine, interacting solely and passively with her gay neighbour Giles, a hapless painter, failing both in work and love and her colleague Zelda, a sassy black woman feeling trapped in a stagnant marriage. However, all this is going to change after Elisa\u2019s fateful discovery of a mysterious amphibious creature that her despotic superior, colonel Strickland, has captured and chained in the lab\u2019s depths, which will set in motion the strings of love and hate of this grotesque fable. Visually, the film is undoubtedly a masterpiece; but that was, of course, to be expected of Del Toro\u2019s unparalleled ability to craft dreamlike microcosms, rich in atmosphere and eeriness. Be that as it may, it also leaves audiences with a feeling of \u201cd\u00e9j\u00e0 vu\u201d.
\nThe director admits to having been heavily influenced by the 50s cult horror gem \u201cCreature from the Black Lagoon<\/em>\u201d and adapting it to Cocteau\u2019s \u201cBeauty and the Beast<\/em>\u201d with a twist. Simultaneously, Hawkings adorkably alluring and magnificently expressive portrayal of Elisa, inevitably brings to mind Am\u00e9lie<\/em>, whereas the cinematography is curiously reminiscent of Delicatessen<\/em> \u2013something Jeunet himself has been quite vocal about. Likewise, the amphibian humanoid isn\u2019t only the spitting image of Abe Sapien (from Del Toro\u2019s previous Hellboy<\/em>) but is also played by the very same actor, Doug Jones; thus sparking rumours about the film possibly being the character\u2019s origin story (vehemently denied by the director). Even Spencer\u2019s Zelda could be mistaken for the alter ego of Minny from The Help<\/em>.
\nDoes all this detract from the film? Not in my book. While perhaps not rather deserving of its \u201coriginal screenplay\u201d nomination, it still remains a stunning romantic fairy tale on the incompleteness derived by solitude and the need for acceptance of the \u201cother\u201d. My real beef with the film, however, is its epidermic take on the social issues of the period and their lacklustre equation to those of the modern day. Perhaps Del Toro does, indeed, subscribe to the principle of Occam\u2019s razor, and favours simplicity over complexity. Yet, contrary to the acute allegories of his acclaimed labyrinth scheme, the form of his greenish water seems limited to the shallowness of a teacup.[\/vc_column_text][divider line_type=”No Line” custom_height=”20″][vc_column_text]\n

The Shape of Water \u2013 seen by Elena Saltarelli<\/em><\/span><\/h5>\n

This movie, directed by Guillermo del Toro, has plundered lots of nominations (thirteen for the Oscars), has won the Leone d\u2019Oro in Venice, two Golden Globes and three BAFTA. As in the famous preceding (The Pan\u2019s Labyrinth<\/em>, ndr), del Toro proves to be a ballad singer extraordinarily sensitive and faceted, mostly when he brings to life a dark tale, in which markedly emotional elements and grotesque details are mixed together. This creates an extremely balanced contrast, bittersweet, supported by a musical and pressing cinematographic rhythm. The river monster, quotation from the Creature of the black lagoon<\/em> (Jack Arnold\u2019s \u201854 movie) and the water, undisputed main character of the entire film, perfectly frame the countless themes touched by this movie: the nature chained by the man\u2019s iron hand (the film is in fact settled during the Cold War) and the idea of the Noble Savage described by the 17\u00b0 Century\u2019s Primitivism, applied to this creature that proves to be more real and pure than the civilized men that torture him. Theological references can be deduced from the consideration of the Monster as a God that, although he eats domestic animals, has a deep comprehension of human\u2019s emotions and an artistic sensibility (for example, he loves the music that Elisa plays him on the bathtub\u2019s border where she sees him for the first time or Giles\u2019 painting that portray him).
\nConcluding, this is a movie that must be admired like a tale, like a dream\u2019s fantasy in which love overlooks Positivist man\u2019s reason and logic, freeing us from the chains of the barren modernism and throwing us into the water, making us discover that we can breathe there too.[\/vc_column_text][divider line_type=”No Line” custom_height=”20″][\/vc_column][\/vc_row]\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[vc_row type=”in_container” full_screen_row_position=”middle” scene_position=”center” text_color=”dark” text_align=”left” overlay_strength=”0.3″][vc_column column_padding=”no-extra-padding” column_padding_position=”all” background_color_opacity=”1″ background_hover_color_opacity=”1″ column_shadow=”none” width=”1\/1″ tablet_text_alignment=”default” phone_text_alignment=”default” column_border_width=”none” column_border_style=”solid”][vc_column_text]id you cry like a baby while watching \u201cThe Shape of Water\u201d? Did you…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6766,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[96],"tags":[129],"yoast_head":"\nThe Shape of Water | Concorto Film Festival reviews<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Guillermo del Toro's "The Shape of Water" as described, analyzed and commented by AsinoVola's newsroom. 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