In the Labyrinth

On the Cusp of Another New Year

Wishing everyone a happy, productive, and peaceful 2018. My resolutions will probably last as long as the evening. But I am confident my prayers for a better world and a year full of friends, family, art, and books will endure.

Madeleine L'Engle: After Annunciation

"This is the irrational season
When love blooms bright and wild.
Had Mary been filled with reason
There’d have been no room for the child."

                                                —Madeline L'engle

 

Art: Mariotto Albertinelli, 1503: "Visitation of Mary and Elizabeth" 

Monsters and Guillermo del Toro's The Shape of Water

After reading this WSJ review of Guillermo del Toro's new film, The Shape of Water, I can't wait to see it. There is no one who so well understands the translation of fairy tale to modern movies as well as Del Toro. The film is a story of two unlikely characters; Elisa, a mute cleaning lady in a government facility and a creature/monster held captive there. As always, Mr. del Toro's monster is complicated:  “I have made it my evangelical mission in life to believe that what we call ‘monsters’ in art are the embodiment of a beautiful imperfection....They are the embodiment of the ‘other,’ and I needed to do a fairy tale in which we talked about empathy and love and saw the ‘other’ in a different way.”

The setting is both modern, industrial, and yet also removed so as to allow the fantastic to dwell appropriately and powerfully within the film. Here's more from the review:  ".... Mr. del Toro based his movie’s aesthetic around the creature’s look, nature and color palate. The government facility is designed in Cold War-era grays and greens similar to the creature’s colors. Other fantastical elements are featured in the film to make a world in which the government is hiding a mysterious creature appear more believable. In one memorable scene involving an overflowing bathtub, Elisa’s apartment seems governed by its own law of physics....If you imagine this creature in a realistic-looking movie, it doesn’t work,” said Mr. del Toro. “You need to make it elevated so something that is not a real being can exist in it.”