Welcome back for another round with the Criterion backlog!
This marks our second, and for this month, final entry for January's theme of famous firsts. Following our kick-off with the Coen Bros' Blood Simple, this time we're looking at the feature debut of Guillermo del Toro – Cronos.
Like our previous entry, besides being the director's debut, this also marks the beginning of several creative relationships that will continue through del Toro's later career. First off, lead Federico Luppi will return to work with del Toro again on The Devil's Backbone and Pan's Labyrinth (both of which we'll touch on later.) Next, his director of photography, Guillermo Navarro, will work with del Toro on many of his subsequent features – and given the strong visual style of much of his work, it's a creative relationship worth highlighting. Finally, it marks the beginning of a number of collaborations (as well as a general good friendship) with actor Ron Perlman.
In terms of impressions from this watch in particular, I'll start by saying, it had been a long time since I previously watched this. Several years of long time. The result, overall, has proven a welcome revisit for a movie I was long overdue to rewatch. Taken alongside his larger body of work, I was pleased to see how much of what defines Del Toro's later filmography is on display here – the fascinating world-building he sets up around the titular Cronos device, his take on vampirism that presents it an even-handed and fairly human light, and a strong visual style, again aided by his long-term collaboration with Navarro as DP. There are several directors whose work I admire where I will admit, their first features are rough as they try to find their footing. In that regard, like the Coens before, Del Toro is one of those who found his voice early on and does a great job of making it heard here and keeping it up in his later movies.
Yeah, you won't die, so you don't have to worry
about unsanitary floors.
But again - at what cost?
Of those aspects mentioned above, the one that made the strongest impression for me this time out was the thematic handling of vampirism. The idea of a nuanced, humanizing look at the undead wasn't a particularly new one on its own at the time that this came out, so I can't say it's blazing trails there, but all the same, Del Toro's particular sentiments on the matter shine, thanks in part to how the mythology around the Cronos device lets him sidestep several of the more traditional trappings of the genre as it's generally known here. Vampirism as presented in the world of Cronos isn't sexy, or even all that sexual. It isn't about gaining new special powers, or becoming superhuman. In fact, for protagonist Jesus Gris (Luppi, showing a range from grandfatherly warmth and tenderness to energetic revitalization to exhaustion on a physical and mental level all over the space of 90 minutes) the only benefits he really notices are a bit of a fresh spark of vitality and youth, and even that is gradual rather than drastic. As the movie establishes with its opening narration, the primary driver behind the creation of the device and its appeal is purely immortality, and that at a cost.
That idea – the immortality for a price – is the central piece the movie hangs on, presenting its two sides in the afflicted Jesus and his counter in the sickly, aging Dieter (Claudio Brook), who simply desires immortality for immortality's sake, knowing what it will entail and not being deterred by that. The movie makes that more stark as we go on and see the extent of what the immortality does to Jesus, going from simply gaining new energy to (painfully) surviving several brushes with death, his human flesh literally sloughing away, revealing a 'new' Jesus, pale and ever thirsting for human blood.
I was satisfied with, but I do need to give some mention here -
I forgot how much the movie also plays into the addiction
subtext through the use of the Cronos device as its means
of conveyance.
That conflict isn't presented in a major way until the second half of the movie, but Del Toro lays the foundations for it very well in the first half. We see Jesus in his life with his wife and granddaughter, a man who has experienced losses, but ultimately still has much to love in his life and people he cares for that enrich his life. Conversely, Dieter lives in a cold, sterile room where his only family is his nephew Angel (Perlman), who he treats more as a strongarm and errand boy than family, with a sense of disdain that is more than mutual. Those relationships underpin the ideological conflict between the two old men perfectly – Jesus has those he loves in his life and the idea of becoming a vampire terrifies him for driving them away from him and his being tempted to feed on them, Dieter has no particular attachment to his nephew (or anyone) and so the idea of that rift from other humans doesn't phase him when weighed against the idea of never having to fear death.
Again, these sorts of retakes are part of why I'm looking forward to this project. Many of the films here I've not seen in some time, and I'm looking forward to looking at them with this relatively fresh perspective and having the chance to really dig into those ideas more.
There's not much more I can add in closing here except to say the fact that this isn't brought up quite as readily in terms of vampire cinema still surprises me. It's not that it's disliked (Hell, the fact it's been released by Criterion in two different editions speaks to that), it's more strange to me that it seems so readily overlooked in the general discussion of the greats of the genre is all.
Suffice it to say, if you haven't watched it, I would wholeheartedly encourage seeking it out. It's a Hell of a start to what has been a great career for Del Toro since.
That brings January to a close. Come back next month where, in recognition of Black History Month, we'll be focusing on some entries in the Criterion Collection by black filmmakers.
Till then.
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