In the film there is an antique dealer named Jesús Gris (Federico Luppi) discovers an ancient device that houses a mysterious insect and promises eternal life to whoever possesses it. Through random activation, “The Invention of Cronos” restores Gris’s youth, but in return awakens in the affable old man an insatiable desire for blood, in a Faustian pact that not only confronts him with the temptation to follow the inexorable march of the Time to escape. , but with a powerful industrialist seeking the invention for himself.
The debut film by the then 28-year-old Guillermo del Toro was presented in Cannes in May 1993 – although it had already been shown at the XXV in November 1992. It had been shown at the International Film Festival – and was released commercially on December 3rd of the same year. In Chronos was in embryonic form not only his future work, but also the director himself: “a guy from Guadalajara who was a fan of horror films and comics,” as the critic remembers. Leonardo Garcia Tsao who handed it to him at the time.
Childhood is fate
Guillermo del Toro Gómez was born on October 9, 1964 in Guadalajara, Jalisco and had a literally fantastic childhood, characterized by Universal monster films and series like The unknown dimension And A step into the afterlife, Miss Comet and Japanese cartoons… and the relationship with her great-aunt Josefina, who has been in “eternal mourning” since the death of her husband and from whom she would inherit that “provincial Catholicism” that is equally valued Chronos what in Hell boy. He is prone to nightmares – lucid dreams, he calls them – and remembers seeing monsters in his room, to which we know he made a promise.
“If they let me pee, I’ll be their friend for life.”
At the age of eight, Gordo took over his father’s Super 8 camera to make small films with his characters. planet of monkeysand then short films like Nightmare 1 (1982) and Matilda (1983), now lost… and he only returned it when he made the jump to 16mm, the format in which he produced Ms. Lupe (1985) and geometry (1987). This early discovery of cinema also led him to attend the Western Cinema and Criticism Group led by Jaime Humberto Hermosillo and then to study at the Center for Research and Film Studies at the University of Guadalajara.
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But it was his fascination with the monstrous that led him to study the legendary Dick Smith and founded Necropia, the special effects makeup company with which he worked on films such as White lies And Goitia, a god unto himselfwhile preparing his first feature film: an ambitious science fiction story animated in Stop the movement and titled omnivore“Comic guy underground as from the end of youth” and written in Nahuatl, as revealed in an interview with IndieWire. “Very popvery Heavy metal“, says.
For three years, Gordo and his team dedicated themselves to building sets and puppets. However, a few days after filming began, the studio was vandalized and the puppets and sets destroyed. Devastated, he decided that his debut would then be a film Live action: García Tsao says that del Toro had been talking about making a vampire film ever since he met him, a goal that would be realized in a script that bore the title in its original version The Vampire by Aurelia Gris and later, gray blood.
Already in the script, del Toro recognized the thematic concerns that have accompanied him ever since – present in the clockwork, the use of religious images, in the protagonism of these “favorite creatures of God”, the insects … and the embodied innocence and again in child characters – all in a Mexican one Film made with production values that required nothing of a Hollywood film and that included actors in the cast. Gringos – it was his first collaboration with Ron Perlman – as well as dialogues in English and subtitles also in Spanish.
Cronos, the shadow of the vampire
The truth is The invention of Kronos – its original title – turned out to be a personal reinvention of the vampire myth: a film that – always according to García Tsao – “would turn out to be the best specimen of national horror cinema” and despite these characters written in different languages , a product of the already free trade agreement in sight, was in a recognizable Mexico. And yet the critic was wrong when he said that del Toro was “far from claiming to be some kind of wetback film” since he would take over the production in 1997 imitate in Hollywood… and in English.
He has since directed the same comic book adaptations:Blade II, Hell boy and its sequel – the critically acclaimed films like The devil’s backbone And The Pan Labyrinthin addition to finally doing an animated film Pinocchio. And it all started with that Chronos: The film was chosen to represent Mexico for Foreign Language Film at the 66th edition of the Oscars, although it was not accepted, and it would go on to win the Ariel that year, winning in nine categories including Best Picture , “Best Director” and – of course – effects specials.
Well, this “guy from Guadalajara” had talent…
