Guillermo del Toro looking for the lost film

Bong Joon-Ho, the winner of the 2019 Golden Palme Parasite would have wanted no one to see their first feature film, Barking Dog. His wish was almost granted insofar as he never released indoors in France – only a few spectators discovered him late according to his programming in festivals.

There is no new denial at Guillermo del Toro, golden lion in Venice and Oscar for best film in 2018 with The shape of the water . The Mexican filmmaker, one of the “very amigos” who left to conquer Hollywood, with Alfonso Cuaron and Alejandro Gonzalez Iñarritu, supervised the 4K restoration of Cronoshis first feature film, which has remained more than thirty years unprecedented in the cinema.

Mechanical and organic object

Without shouting to the unknown masterpiece, Cronos is a curiosity, worthy of interest for anyone interested in the influences of Del Toro, barely digested in this first test (from Mario Bava to David Cronenberg, via Terence Fischer and Dario Argento). As is often the case in a first try, Cronos Also contains in germs all the great themes and obsessions of the filmmaker. Starting with the love of monsters.

Read too
Our Mercato review: Jamel Debbouze, Awesome Business Football Burning Agent

Jesus Gray is first of all an ordinary man, old antique dealer without stories and a grandfather protecting a small orphan. Its discovery of a box hidden in a statue upsets its existence. The object, both mechanical and organic, comes alive and injects a fluid which makes him rejuvenate. A curse. Jesus becomes a kind of vampire thirsty for blood, fleeing the light, pursued by a sick businessman and his bottom nephew – Ron Perlman, future favorite actor of Del Toro.

Cronos To date remains the only work of Del Toro shot in Mexico. He regretted his early exile in the United States, the exponential budgets of his following productions and the compromises inherent in a career in the studios (Mimic, Blade 2, Hellboy, Pacific Rim…). While waiting for her Frankenstein. His two most beautiful films remain his diptych on the Spanish War, Devil’s back et Pan labyrinth turned in his mother tongue.