Guillermo del Toro is not, and will likely never be, an art house filmmaker. Nor, for that matter, does he make ‘serious’ dramas like Steven Spielberg or Ron Howard. Pan’s Labyrinth is as close as he’s ever likely to come to the sort of fare that plays well the Oscars. Del Toro is unapologetically a genre filmmaker, working primarily in horror, fantasy and graphic novel styles. He deals with vampires and demons, faeries and trolls, fauns, labyrinths, ghosts, spectres and ancient curses. His is a world of haunted houses, aliens from outer space, Lovecraftian mythologies and Elder Gods.
In many ways it’s the rather malleable nature of genre that gives del Toro his greatest freedom, and what makes his films so very remarkable to watch. While we can attempt to label Pan’s Labyrinth as a fable, Hellboy as a superhero film, or Cronos as horror, all transcend the common generic distinctions that as critics and viewers we attempt to put on them. Hellboy is also a romance, Pan’s Labyrinth is a wartime drama, Cronos a mystery. They make use of their genres while also transcending them, operating via new rules and in new (but recognizable) paradigms.
Rather than creating generic superheroes or villains, del Toro’s ghosts and goblins act according to their natures. Evil in his films is often a human invention, while the ghosts are remnants of human anger or betrayal. The magical faeries and other world creatures behave according to their natural whims. The tooth fairies of Hellboy II are not evil creatures – they are creatures consuming because it is in their nature to consume. The villainous elven prince is no villain – he’s defending his world against the depredations of the ours. It is humans that create the stamp of good and evil, humans that delineate the world in black and white. The magical world, as well as the natural one, is far more complex. The viewer’s loyalties shift, are questioned and altered.
Transcending genre, del Toro shows us what true horror and true fantasy can look like. Complex, lyrical, beautiful, pathetic and very often terrifying, he gives us not a generic world we can recognize and dismiss, but an entire universe made of dream, nightmares, and fairytales.
