VENICE: Guillermo del Toro’s “The Shape of Water” is an aquatic “Beauty and the Beast,” a transgressive fairy tale about a young woman’s love for a scaly creature from the Amazonian depths.
Like the best fables, it’s also rooted in the real world: the story of a migrant from the south facing a hostile reception in a security-obsessed United States.
“I think that fantasy is a very political genre,” del Toro said Thursday at the Venice Film Festival, where “The Shape of Water” had its red-carpet world premiere. It’s one of 21 films competing for the coveted Golden Lion, the festival’s top prize.
“Fairy tales were born in times of great trouble. They were born in times of famine, pestilence and war,” he added.
Part monster movie, part noir thriller, part Hollywood musical, the film defies categorization, though Del Toro took a stab, suggesting it’s “like Douglas Sirk rewriting Pasolini’s ‘Theorem’ with a fish.”
Some critics are calling it del Toro’s best film since “Pan’s Labyrinth” in 2006. The Daily Telegraph summed it up as “an honest-to-God B-movie blood-curdler that’s also, somehow, a shimmeringly earnest and boundlessly beautiful melodrama.” Screen International called it “exquisite ... del Toro at his most poignant and sweet.”
Set in early-1960s Baltimore, the film stars Sally Hawkins as Elisa, a mute orphan who works as a cleaner at a high-security lab. She forges a bond with a captured creature who is at the center of a Cold War tug-of-war between the US and the Soviet Union.
“It’s a movie set in 1962, but it’s a movie about today,” del Toro told reporters at a Venice news conference. “It’s about the issues we have today. When America talks about America being great again, I think they are dreaming of an America that was in gestation in ‘62 — an America that was futuristic, full of promise ... but at the same time there was racism, sexism, classism.”
Del Toro said the creature — played with fittingly fluid movements by Doug Jones — is the only character in the film without a name, because he represents “many things to many people.”
For lonely Elisa, “it’s the first time somebody, something is looking at her, looking back the way you look back at the person you love.” For Michael Shannon’s ruthless US government agent Strickland, the creature is “a dark, dirty thing that comes from the south” and must be eliminated.
“I am Mexican, and I know what it is to be looked at as ‘the other’ no matter what circumstances you’re in,” the director said — and the character of the creature embodied that otherness.
The film features warm performances from Octavia Spencer and Richard Jenkins as Elisa’s friends — and a mesmerizing turn from Hawkins, who creates a character of depth, passion and compassion without saying a word.
Hawkins said that when del Toro first told her about the movie, she was working on her own project about “a woman who doesn’t know she’s a mermaid.” Some of those ideas fed into the character of Elisa.
“It was just synchronistic,” she said. “It was very odd. Those things rarely happen and when they do you know it’s something special.”
“The Shape of Water” features del Toro’s usual rich mix of ingredients: everything from Russian spies to musical interludes. Its overriding message, the director says, is “to choose love over fear.”
“We live in times where fear and cynicism are used in a way that is very pervasive and persuasive,” del Toro said. “Our first duty when we wake up is to believe in love.
“It’s the strongest force in the universe,” he said. “The Beatles and Jesus can’t be wrong — not both of them at the same time.”
Del Toro’s ‘The Shape of Water’ makes waves in Venice
Del Toro’s ‘The Shape of Water’ makes waves in Venice
Eating snow cones or snow cream can be a winter delight, if done safely
- As the storm recedes, residents of lesser-affected areas might be tempted to whip up bowls of “snow cream”
- Fassnacht said he tried “snow cream” for the first time last year when some students made him some
WASHINGTON: Take two snowballs and call me in the morning?
Dr. Sarah Crockett, who specializes in emergency and wilderness medicine, doesn’t explicitly tell her patients at New Hampshire’s Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center to swallow snow, but she often prescribes more time outside. If that time includes eating a handful of ice crystals straight or adding ingredients to make snow cones and other frozen treats, she’s all for it.
“To stop and just be present and want to catch a snowflake on your tongue, or scoop up some fresh, white, untouched snow that’s collected during something as exciting as a snowstorm, I think that there’s space in our world to enjoy that,” Crockett said. “And while we need to make good choices, I think these are simple things that can bring joy.”
Getting outdoors to enjoy simple pleasures is unlikely to be front of mind for people in a 1,300-mile (2,100-kilometer) stretch of the United States where a massive weekend storm brought deep snow and bitter cold. Freezing rain and ice brought down power lines and tree limbs, leaving hundreds of thousands of homes without power or heating in the South, while snow upended road and air travel from Arkansas to New England.
As the storm recedes, residents of lesser-affected areas might be tempted to whip up bowls of “snow cream” — snow combined with milk, sugar and vanilla — after seeing techniques demonstrated on TikTok. Others might want to try “sugar on snow,” a taffy-like confection made by pouring hot maple syrup onto a plate of snow.
Despite its pristine appearance, snow isn’t always clean enough to consume. Crockett and other experts shared advice for digging in safely while digging out.
The science of snow
Whether it’s rain or snow, precipitation cleans the atmosphere, picking up pollutants as it falls, said Steven Fassnacht, a professor of snow hydrology at Colorado State University. But snowflakes pick up more impurities because they fall more slowly and have more exposed surface areas than raindrops, he said.
That means snow that falls near coal plants or factories that emit particulates into the air contains more contaminants, said Fassnacht, who was in Shinjo, Japan, last week studying the salt content of snow. He said he wouldn’t have hesitated to take a taste there because there weren’t any big industrial complexes upwind.
“Snow can be eaten, but you want to think about the trajectory. Where did that snow come from?” he said.
Timing is another consideration, according to Crockett. The first wave of snow holds the most particulate matter, she said, so waiting until a storm is well underway before putting out a bowl to collect falling snow is one precaution to take.
Ground contamination is an additional factor, experts say. Avoiding yellow snow, which may be tainted by urine or tree bark, is conventional wisdom, but it’s also a good idea to stay away from any snow pushed by snowplows and packed with road salt, deicing chemicals and debris.
Snack versus survival
What about eating snow to survive? Crockett, who oversees the wilderness medicine program at Dartmouth College’s Geisel School of Medicine, says that’s a bad idea.
The energy it takes to melt snow in your mouth as you’re eating it essentially counteracts the hydration benefit, plus it decreases your core body temperature and increases the risk of hypothermia. While outdoor enthusiasts who plan to spend days in the mountains often melt and boil snow to purify it for drinking, it shouldn’t be viewed as an immediate hydration source, she said.
“If you are disoriented on a local hike, I would say your number one priority is to try to reach out for help in any way you can, ... not ‘Can I eat enough snow?’” Crockett said.
Focus on rewards, not risks
Fassnacht, who has studied snow for more than 30 years, said he tried “snow cream” for the first time last year when some students made him some. He described it as a fun experience that got him thinking about flavors and textures, not contaminants.
“It’s a whimsical thing,” he said. “It made me think about what are the characteristics of that freshly fallen snow, and how does that change the taste sensation?”
Crockett likewise is a fan of finding inspiration and wonder in nature. She worries that overprotective parenting has contributed to anxiety in some young people, and that excessive warnings about eating snow could add to that.
“We have to strike that right balance of making sure we’re avoiding danger while not being so protective that we encourage this ‘Everything is going to harm me’ mentality, particularly for children,” she said.
Crockett has four children, including a daughter she described as a “passionate snow eater.” As the recent winter storm got underway, she asked her why she liked eating snow so much and was told, “It makes me feel connected to the Earth.”
“That is actually something that’s really important to me, that we all have this connection to nature,” Crockett said.
