Interview (Written): Guillermo del Toro

Writer-director of the new movie ‘The Shape of Water’.

If you haven’t heard by now, the winner of this year’s Golden Lion Award representing the best film at the Venice Film Festival is The Shape of Water.

Written and directed by Guillermo del Toro, whose other credits include Hellboy, Pan’s Labyrinth, Pacific Rim, and Crimson Peak, his latest film looks like another one of his wonderful modern fairy tales. Here’s the trailer:

The Hollywood Reporter caught up with del Toro in Venice:

Is this movie meant to be a social commentary?

It was very punctually made to be that, through the love story. It’s a very romantic movie, but it’s a movie that’s not only about 1962 — which is the moment in which the American dream is at its apex and dies with Kennedy and gives way to the disillusionment of Vietnam — it’s also very much about now, not only about politics but about the fact that we live in a time where hatred and division are so easy. To talk about love and belonging … people are almost ashamed to talk about emotions. The idea of the movie is that water and love are the most powerful things in the universe, and they take whatever shape they need to find you.

You’ve been vocal on Twitter about politics in the Trump presidency. Does the current climate affect you as an artist?

The curious thing is that being a Mexican, I’ve been feeling this political climate [from] years and years ago. It never quite went away. That’s the idea [of the film]. The things that were wrong in ’62 — racism and sexism — are still alive. I started writing this movie in 2011 and 2012, and it was already the same story. All I’m saying is we are now able to see it more openly, but it’s always existed. What is astounding to me is that I never thought I would see an openly Nazi rally marching like that in American cities.

For the rest of the interview, go here.

The Shape of Water movie website

It opens in theaters on December 8th. Put that date in your calendar!