In 1993, Mexican filmmaker Guillermo del Toro made his directing debut with an interesting movie called Cronos, a tragedy about a man who is turned into a monster in his attempt to hold onto life. In my review from a few years ago, I called it ‘del Toro’s Frankenstein’.
In actuality, it was merely the first step in a decades-long journey towards the real thing. The filmmaker who has made his sympathy towards apparent monsters his signature thematic calling card has had Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein as a kind of north star through all of his stories of gothic fantasy, grotesque creatures, and the consequences of misunderstanding them. He has refined and perfected his formula in building to this great end, a desired magnum opus.
Frankenstein is of course a towering work to tackle, though it has been more than thirty years since the last major cinematic adaptation of the original story (and that one, Kenneth Branagh’s Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, though quite loyal to the book was quite a bad movie, forgotten by most). Yet del Toro approaches it as though it is being made for the first time, sharing a story the details of which have been lost in the cultural persona of Frankenstein, while casting it with deep resonance that suits the fearful tragic atmosphere that Shelley so ardently communicated for her time. Del Toro demonstrates the pertinence of her genius for ours.
The film is structured very closely to the book, opening on a prelude in which a Russian expedition to the North Pole, trapped in the ice, finds a wounded and weary Victor Frankenstein, played by Oscar Isaac, whom they take aboard and after a brief confrontation with his Creature (Jacob Elordi) who has been hunting him, the captain listens to first Frankenstein’s story and then once he has breached the ship, the Creature’s. Frankenstein’s is a tragic tale of the loss of his mother spurring his desire to conquer death and his scientific experiments of reanimation combined with some choice funding resulting in him eventually succeeding at bringing to life his Creature -harvested from the remnants of various corpses; only for his impatience with his creation’s development and growing horror at its power to lead him to attempt to destroy it. This failing, the Creature on his own grows intelligent by more sympathetic means, understanding the nature of its being and thereafter seeking a reckoning with Frankenstein.
The world that del Toro sets this against is vivid -all of his worlds are: the intricate production details utterly remarkable, from Frankenstein’s macabre library and estate to his isolated castle. It is rich and textured and beautiful in that fantastical way common of del Toro’s work, very broad and operatic; and sometimes in del Toro’s other films it hasn’t fit -but here it certainly does. Frankenstein has always skirted the border of fantasy and reality -it was a cautionary tale after all, its literal spaces not particularly relevant. And del Toro designs the film off of that framework, not just in its atmosphere and sets but its costumes and make-up that -especially where Frankenstein and the Creature are concerned, feel ripped wholesale from early nineteenth century gothic artwork, and specifically that famous Theodor von Holst illustration from one of the book’s early editions which features a tall, pale, muscular Creature with long black hair confounded by his new existence.
Elordi’s make-up to this effect is one of the movie’s great triumphs -unsurprising given del Toro’s past pedigree in that department. There’s fine detail in his physiology from even before he comes to life, this version having a keener, more visceral interest in the theoretical science than past versions (yet not so much so that it is tediously logical). And it speaks to the obsessive, subtly aesthetic character of Frankenstein whose intrigue with the biological aspect of death while pursuing life is no accident.
Isaac's Frankenstein is the consummate obsessive, his interest in the human body and its processes of life an all-encompassing compulsion, and yet he is played with a great deal of humane gravitas. His inspirations and his sins alike are tangible, his yearning to chase the impossible drawn with understanding. The interesting choice is made to convert Elizabeth -traditionally Victor's love interest- into the fiance of his brother William (Felix Kammerer), thus making Frankenstein himself lonely and isolated like his Creature -tangibly disconnected from much of humanity -barring his financier and scientific partner Henrich Harlander (Christoph Waltz), who occupies a role both structurally and thematically similar to the figure of the seductive Dr. Pretorius in Bride of Frankenstein. As beholden as he is to the book, del Toro doesn't ignore the curious virtues of past movies -inviting back that homoerotic subtext of the James Whale films.
For Isaac, he borrows a little from many past versions of Frankenstein while creating his own picture of the character from the amalgam. The madness and the passion, the curiosity and the brooding danger comes through as Isaac relishes the weight of the part and it is one of his most singular and compelling performances yet. Mia Goth as Elizabeth actually reigns in some of her performance extravagances of late as a good foil for both Frankenstein and his Creature, close to each, but just as distant. Elordi's performance as the Creature though might be the most thrilling -a typical del Toro monster drawn with considerable sympathy even compared to other iterations, and yet with that sense of existential darkness to his power and presence -even emanating from him himself. The Creature's own identification as an abomination has always been significant -Elordi invests it with a necessary depth of tragedy. At the same time, his tall frame and natural imposing presence translates well the dread of the character, hand-in-hand with sympathy.
As has always been the case for del Toro's monsters; but Frankenstein presents a different situation for the director, who not only identifies with the misunderstood creature, but his creator as well. Not since James Whale has a filmmaker with this story demonstrated a cognizance of that dichotomy. Frankenstein and the Creature are in a sense mirrors of one another -the artist in del Toro relates to Frankenstein's need to create, his passion, his inspired processes. The darkness of this figure is not manifest in his study which is baroque and beautiful in its morbidity (consciously reminiscent of del Toro's own Bleak House).
Frankenstein's faults, his madness, impatience, and despotism, are not justified, but they are explained -there is the sense of some reflection in this, for artist and audience alike- his humanity is undeniable. Meanwhile the Creature, for all his innocence and pathos and existential pain, is capable of human cruelty -a human monstrousness he has inherited from his father and the society he has been thrust into. They are each complex, well-rounded characters -as in the novel- it is fitting their perspectives are given equal weight and their fates intertwined.
Every Frankenstein movie -even the aberrations like Poor Things- is a reflection of its time, and sure enough there is a very cutting subtext that del Toro applies to his iteration. It is a hard thing to miss with that overarching theme of creation without consideration and its destructive consequences that del Toro is targeting the architects of A.I. through this movie -for that is the current monster that we have wrought, wreaking havoc on everything from the abstract (the impulse for creativity) to the tangible (the environment). It is curious the Creature himself is a neutral being within this metaphor, though he understands the cruelty of his creation, the vain and selfish desires that brought him into being. Frankenstein meanwhile embodies well the shortsightedness and the desire for control of the opportunistic tech bros endeavouring to push A.I. on everyday people (as well as the subtle incel tendencies of the same). He has no respect for the power his creation wields and it comes for him in the end. Del Toro concedes the reality of A.I. being out there now in the world -it may indeed, as is the case for the Creature, outlast its creator. But there must be responsibility and accountability in how it is reckoned with, he asserts. And we cannot forget the arrogance that brought it to life.
Though it is not quite so like the book as it may seem, the experience of del Toro's Frankenstein is akin to reading the book for the first time. Shelley's dark themes and anxieties are all throughout it, the tenor of some of her diction as well -but it is also thoroughly del Toro's creation, though he comes at it with far more humility than Frankenstein. He walks in pronounced footsteps, relishing them as much as his own vision -his love for the very idea of Frankenstein shines bright. Though it cannot be called his masterpiece, it feels ardently like the movie he has been building towards through much of his career. After all this time it has paid off superbly. It is alive!
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