A panacea for Trumpianism

Rating: 10/10 (17 August 2018)

Part allegory, part spiritual sequel to the Creature from the Black Lagoon, this lovely, beautiful and *perfect* film is a deeply engaged with the social and political issues that have befallen the US since Trump announced his candidacy. It's more than a romantic fantasia about outsiders finding love. It's indictment of the monstrous evil that is fear of the other and Strickland is truly Trump's man. It's striking how much anger is boiling under the surface of this film. And how that anger makes the love story all the more tender.
I have seen this film over a dozen times. I saw it once a day for each day it was in the theater I the small town where I live. Each time I see a new detail, a new simmer in deep waters of its thematic import. Red is passion. Green is the future. There's the wave on the wall. It is all around. Detail. Thought. Emotion.
This is Del Toro's masterpiece and one of the very few best picture winners that Oscars got exactly right. It is not for everyone. In a lot of ways it is a very weird film, a cross between French art house cinema, a Sirk melodrama and the universal sci-fi films of the 50's. But for me it touched the very core of my being.
Giles is the best gay character in Hollywood cinema.