The Shape of Del Toro's Mind

Rating: 6/10 (4 January 2018)

I'll say this: Mr. Del Toro can make a cinematic experience memorable. I don't know any director who can craft a film in such an exquisite manner and at the same time inject revolting and mind numbing scenes of vulgarity and violence leaving you to ponder the point of it all.
In Pan's Labyrinth this combination worked to make a point about self sacrifice and mercy in an ugly world. Hellboy was strictly for entertainment and laughs. I enjoyed both, but for different reasons.
But in the Shape of Water, there is a different paradigm in play. While played ultimately as a fantasy, Del Toro makes it morally and ethically acceptable for a woman to express concern and mercy for another species by... mating with it? Perhaps the only reason this is remotely okay is because the creature is intelligent and has the ability to converse through sign language, and it has the shape of a humanoid. I do believe apes fit this description, too.
But, as I say, this is a fantasy and so it must play out as a weird and unusual love story. One where even a plain Jane mute with only a homosexual middle age man for a close friend can find herself as attractive, as long as it is with a fish-amphib- man.
The premise, as I make it out to be, falls more than a bit flat since you must not only suspend disbelief but your natural inclination to find only those of your own species as suitable mates. Asking us to do both at the same time in the name of what - tolerance, diversity? - is more than most can take.
So in this sense, Del Toro goes where no man has gone before and makes a beautifully crafted and repulsive movie wrapped in the same container. I'll give it a hesitant nod toward the positive only because the attempt at high mindedness is laudable, though regrettable in the manner of its execution on screen.