CRONOS
A film review by Max Hoffmann
Copyright 1994 Max Hoffmann
CRONOS, Mexico 1992, 95 min. Rating: 13 on scale of 1 to 10 (10 = highest)
Seen 5/2/95 Kabuki Theatre, SF (SF Film Festival) Director/Screenplay: Guillermo del Toro Producers: Bertha Navarro, Arthur Gorson Camera: Guillermo Navarro Editor: Raul Davalos Cast: Federico Luppi, Ron Perlman, Claudio Brook, Margarita Isabel, Tamara Shanath Distribution: October Films (address/phone at end)
Every so often, about once a year, you stumble upon a quirky film that is so suffused with humanity, that so touches you in a unique and tender way, that you forget all the turkeys you've sat through for the past year ... that you almost turn religious thanking God for the privilege of being a movie goer. It is what film festivals were made for. For me, in 1993, it was TANGO ARGENTINO. This year's find is CRONOS.
This jewel of a film defies classification: almost even balance between an effective, low-budget horror flick, Hitchcock suspense, and a touching, personal family drama. It's an amazing debut for director Guillermo del Toro (who also wrote the taut screenplay). Guillermo Navarro's honey-toned camera virtually hides all signs of the limited budget, and the inspired casting makes this film a gift. A world of choices must have been rejected by the deft art director. With an alchemist's touch, director del Toro has turned something as hoary as a vampire tale into solid gold.
Sadly (see interview with director at end, which contain plot-spoilers), over twenty minutes of the film was lost, due to a flawed lens, so there are times that the story line is a bit abrupt. If the lost footage had survived, this may have been another SHOP ON MAINSTREET. What survived from this single camera shoot comes damn close to that treasure of a film.
THE PLOT: a fast paced prologue reveals that an alchemist fled the Spanish Inquisition to Colonial Mexico, while working on the secret of eternal life through a timepiece of sorts (the Cronos, which resembles a Faberge Easter Egg, "with a twist."). A collapsed ceiling in the 1930's sends a sliver of wood and plaster through his heart, calling it "curtains" for the 500-year-old vampire/alchemist. Narration assures us that though every item of the alchemist's estate was catalogued and auctioned, the Cronos device was never found. The camera makes a brief sweep of what might have been Jeffrey Dahmler's kitchen.
Fast forward to 1997, where the impish director/screenwriter gives us a wry view of post NAFTA Mexico: signs in English/Spanish/Russian/ Japanese and Chinese fortune cookies being served as part of the Christmas festivities. English freely intermixed with Spanish dialogue.
Jesus Gris and his eight-year-old granddaughter, Aurora, have a suspicious visitor to his antique shop. The stranger is overly interested in a Colonial archangel (which we've earlier seen in the alchemist's Colonial laboratory). The visitor, who was obviously casing the joint, leaves without a purchase. Curiosity piqued, Jesus pries open the base, and discovers the alchemists secret Cronos-device. His curiosity sets the device in motion, and it literally gets its "clutches" in him (shades of ALIEN!) altering the course of his life ... forever. Soon it's revealed that a wealthy, cancer-ridden villain, who has the alchemist's instruction manual, but not the Cronos-device, catches on to Jesus's "secret." But the screenplay departs from all of the usual plot turns one is accustomed to in a mainstream Hollywood potboiler with a heavy dose of "chase" at it's core.
Inspired casting includes Ron Perlman (THE NAME OF THE ROSE), very recognizable as Linda Hamilton's "Beast" from the pre-Disney TV series. He plays an overgrown dufus, nephew to the eternity-obsessed villain. His obsession with an upcoming nose job, and nauseating personal habits that literally defy description, provide steady comic relief.
But it is the enchanting combination of Argentinian actor Federico Luppi as the grandfather, and Tamara Shanath as his hauntingly beautiful, mute granddaughter, which elevates this film above the pale of similar films about the "undead." Some of the lost footage (see below) explained their deep connection, but the silent looks they exchange in the surviving footage convey world's of meaning. You may find yourself holding your breath involuntarily at several points throughout the film. Ultimately, this grandfather literally goes to hell and back, as a price for his curiosity, becoming a Christ-like figure who must choose between eternal life and sacrifice for the one he loves most.
Incidentally, del Toro wrote his screenplay with Argentinian actor, Federico Luppi, in mind. Due to del Toro's youthful appearance, Luppi thought he was a delivery boy when he showed up on his doorstep with the script. Luppi dismissed del Toro as an arrogant young pup, when the hopeful director said, "I'd like to discuss this with you once you've read it." Luppi's world-class performance may inspire you to reach for those Berlitz Spanish tapes you put on the back burner, in order to more fully appreciate his earlier films in their original tongue.
The film contains grisly, explicit violence, which often comes off amazingly inoffensive, when balanced with the rest of the film. The director treads a very thin line at times, between classic Alfred Hitchcock suspense and John Waters high camp, black humor. It is a line that has tripped more experienced talent (Peter Bogdonovich and Mel Brooks numerous times). Del Toro might be a candidate for Cirque du Soleil for succeeding in his amazing balancing act. The inspired musical score has a lot to do with the successful weight of the film. (Please, God, let there be a soundtrack! It's in Dolby.)
Another unique aspect of this film is its almost 50/50 balance between English dialogue and subtitled Spanish. The American characters understand everything that is said to them in Spanish, yet stubbornly answer in English. (How like the first Anglo arrivals to California.) As a result, the experience doesn't have the "feel" of a foreign language film.
NOTES FROM Q & A WITH THE DIRECTOR: (contains plot mega-spoilers)
Director del Toro confessed to combining two obsessions in his screenplay; his fascination with insects (there is a live one at the heart of the Cronos device) and what he sees as the "synergy" between vampirism and Latino Catholicism. "I always thought of the host and communion as Christian Sushi," he joked, in heavily accented English, "as a child I wondered how they preserved that body of Christ for such a long time, to still be eating it in church!"
"My grandmother was so religious," continued the boyish, anglo-looking director, "that by age 11 I was the official spokesperson for the Virgin Mary." What del Toro described as the unbalanced emphasis on damnation over redemption in his local church obviously had a heavy hand in some of the haunting makeup and imagery chosen for the film.
Deliberate parallels to the life of Christ and insects were sprinkled throughout the screenplay. The grandfather, who eventually/temporarily "dies," resurrects on the third day. One character comments that God may have loved insects most of all, "mosquitos walk on water ... Jesus walks on water." There are several plot references to insects being "perfect machines," while the man-made machine (Cronos) runs awry in the havoc it wrecks on the main characters.
THE LOST FILM REELS: Due to the low budget, footage was shot in Mexico, and processed in Los Angeles. "We had weeklies, not dailies," del Toro commented. Tragically, over a week's worth of shooting was lost due to a flawed, out of focus lens. Budget and schedule didn't permit any retakes.
WHAT WAS LOST: the original screenplay revealed that young Aurora retreated into a mute fantasy world after her parents left, never to return. She is being raised by Jesus, her grandfather, and his wife, who teaches Tango lessons. A lost scene showed Jesus lovingly writing fake post cards to Aurora from her dead parents. The fact that she accepts this fantasy of distant, yet loving parents, makes her non-chalant reaction to her grandfather's predicament (she's the only witness) ring true.
In a brief, touching scene that survives, we see the resurrected and deteriorating Jesus painfully writing a love letter to his grieving "widow," trying to explain why he can't permit her to see him. In a lost, succeeding sequence, Jesus then silently slipped into his wife's bedroom, where he tenderly placed his note in her sleeping hand. He falls asleep, unnoticed, next to her, until dawn, when he must leave (having become a vampire).
On waking, the "widow" can't believe the note she finds, and logically assumes that mute Aurora has written it. "What do you think this is, another one of your crazy postcards?" she screams, tossing the family secret out into the open. According to del Torro, the look on young Aurora's face, in the badly fogged footage, was unforgettable.
The surviving footage has a rather abrupt jump, early in the film, to the rejuvenated grandfather (after his first dose of Cronos) finding that his antique shop had been trashed. Lost in the fogged footage is what sounds like a wonderful scene, where the night before, he rediscovers his lost virility. He tries to romance his wife, only to be rejected, because she's too tired from her Tango lessons to realize what she's missing. This lost scene makes her later refusal to believe or accept his painful post-mortem note even more touching. What does survive, is an unforgettable image of the resurrected grandfather, fresh from the mortuary, calling his wife from a pay phone in the pouring rain, only to have her hang up on him (because it obviously must be a "crank" call).
The film was shot on a budget of $1.2 million, which actually cost over $2 million American due to the 30% Mexican interest loans. It was completed on a frantic eight-week schedule. Though we'll never know exactly how great the film might have been with the lost footage, we can celebrate having found a new director who may be just the one to shed light on the newly changed relationship between America and Mexico. By any measure or scale, CRONOS is an amazingly brilliant first effort.
Fortunately, this film has distribution. Run, don't walk to your nearest repertory film house and direct them to:
OCTOBER FILMS Title: CRONOS 45 Rockefeller Plaza, Ste. 3014 New York, NY 10111, USA FAX 212/332-2499
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