Atomic Chat: Guillermo del Toro

Director, producer and writer of the forthcoming, and guaranteed cult classic, Pan's Labyrinth.

Mexican film director Guillermo del Toro has swung between major Hollywood productions, and smaller more personal creations. It is into this last mould that his new film Pan’s Labyrinth firmly fits.

Read the Atomic Pan’s Labyrinth review.

Filmography:

• Hellboy 2: The Golden Army (2008)
• Pan's Labyrinth (El Laberinto del Fauno) (2006)
• Hellboy (2004)
• Blade II (2002)
• The Devil's Backbone (El Espinazo del Diablo) (2001)
• Mimic (1997)
• Cronos (La Invención de Cronos) (1993)
• Geometria (1987)
• Doña Lupe (1985)


Atomic: Thank you for your time, we enjoyed the movie thoroughly.

Guillermo del Toro: Thank you very much!

Atomic: Did you enjoy the break away from doing epic Hollywood movies?

Guillermo del Toro: It was good, but it was a very hard experience at the same time. It’s very hard to both produce and direct, it’s a bit of a contradiction. It’s the first time I’ve done it. It does present a bit of a conflict.

Atomic: On top of that you also wrote the screenplay, which must have been quite a burden?

Guillermo del Toro: It was, but it was the only way I could guarantee full control of the material. It’s a movie that will either succeed or fail on its own terms, yet I couldn’t have had the movie have any interference, because the material and the tone and the particular style in which it’s told required total control.

Atomic: What would you say to someone that was in two minds about seeing Pan’s Labyrinth?

Guillermo del Toro: I would say that the same way that Devil’s Backbone was not a regular ghost story; this is not a fairytale for children. It’s a parable for adults. A very violent parable about choice and disobedience. Definitely not by a mile intended for children!

Atomic: That’s quite clear! To us it struck us as a movie that portrayed the lengths that people will go to in extreme situations…

Guillermo del Toro: Yeah, I tried to take two completely divergent realities. One, for a female universe represented by the girl and another being a male universe and have them clash. And it is from that clash that the particular flavour of the movie comes from.

It’s a clash of materials that the more linear mind will have a problem accepting because we live in a world where most every movie is calibrated to find its audience in a pre-sanitised way. We see more movies being treated as product, and being marketed to an audience that has no trouble discerning their particular flavour and brand. But this movie is a harder movie to brand, a harder movie to pinpoint. But if you dig it, if you connect with it, it’s quite a wonderful concoction.

Atomic: Now the creatures and the mythologies in Pan’s Labyrinth – are they a combination of traditional stories plus those you created for the movie?

Guillermo del Toro: The reality of that is cemented deeply into the most traditional fairytales that used to come out of the most harrowing of environments. People tend to forget that Hansel and Gretel came out of one of the biggest famines in Europe. Fairytales come from times of plague, famine, war. And we’re also seeing brutal moments of mutilation, cannibalism, infanticide, murder, you know, but fantasised. It is make believe, but the horror deal comes as a direct descendant of the fairy tale.

Atomic: Your use of CG in the film is understated and only used when necessary, and to great effect. What’s your view of using GC in films and to a wider scale, how it’s been embraced today?

Guillermo del Toro: Well I believe that there is absolutely no prejudice that should be validated about CG. You use it when you need to use it, and sometimes the minimum is 100 shots, and sometimes the minimum is 900 shots. It is about the philosophy with which you apply it that makes the difference. If you use it for a solving, all purpose solution, as a lazy approach to filmmaking, then that’s what it will look like. But if you are trying to be creative and use it excitedly and with a sense of magic and a desire to push it for the expressive aspects, then it’s as good a source as any other. A lot of people tend to say CG is bad, but no resource is inherently bad. I believe that CG is no more evil than any other form of effect in the past.