Cast: Claudio Brook, Frederico Luppi

Director: Guillermo del Toro

Running Time: 1 hr 32 min


REVIEW:

This early effort of the magnificent PAN’S LABYRINTH helmer, the visionary Guillermo del Toro is that epitome of unique style. He may be an export from the Mexican shores, but that doesn’t undermine his talents of creating moods and swings in this sophisticated horror film that completely re-imagine the vampire flick genre. CRONOS, yes, is in its core a vampire film but beautifully put, and doesn’t reduce its main protagonist, the antique dealer Jesus Gris (Frederico Luppi) to a creature of the night sucking blood and exterminating people but gives us the crux of the story – a lonely human who was thrown into the dark world, suffering the prices of eternal life, and at the same time, protecting his granddaughter from the harsh realities of life.

Gris, an antique dealer that sells old things some as old as him, came upon this device created by a 16th century alchemist called Cronos (Latin word for “time”) that was hidden under a statue of an archangel. Without knowing, the device becomes alive, showing golden miniature legs and injects a substance into Gris’s skin. It housed a parasite that grants eternal life, yet the receiver will suffer such terrible price. Gris, even aged and at the brink of his maturity, started to feel younger and a funny thirst for the red liquid, the abominable act, drinking blood. That bathroom scene in CRONOS is mostly haunting when Gris sees a man with a nosebleed and drips blood everywhere in the bathroom, and when he was alone, licks the little pool of blood in the immaculate marble floor. In his suffering, he seeks help with this dying millionare-industrialist, who seemingly sought after the device too, in selfish aims as to prolong his life because he’s dying in multi-cancer. The irony is present here from these two characters.

It’s not just the plot that feels peculiar, but certainly the characters were odd too. Del Toro has now become known for his putting of humanity in the strangest stories we could come across. In CRONOS, he puts the granddaughter as Gris’s source of survival apart from blood and the device, which had helped him when he was mistakenly thought to be dead from a car crash. This relationship between Gris and his granddaughter is often heartfelt and understanding.

Del Toro blends his horror craft with a human story with a black humour, as CRONOS oozes with some funny scenes, although morbid and dark but blackly funny. The morgue scenes, for instance, where the embalmer-cum-prosthetic-artist moans about not telling him that the dead body will be cremated when in fact, he had already drawn his so-called masterpiece on the face of the cadaver. It’s a film that swings from serious attention to morbid humour, and back to the Del Toro-esque visuals of heavy-palettes.

VERDICT:

May be far from the superior PAN’S LABYRINTH, Del Toro manages to craft his early effort with signs of mastery in building scenes and camera-works. CRONOS is a unique kind of storytelling, original and distinctive.


RATING: B+