VENICE: A fairy tale in which a mute cleaner in a government laboratory falls in love with an aquatic creature facing dissection there - an appeal to embrace differences - premiered at the Venice film festival on Thursday.
Mexican director Guillermo del Toro’s ‘The Shape of Water’ stars Sally Hawkins as Elisa, the cleaner in the lab whose life changes when she befriends the amphibious creature, which has been captured by government scientists to study its breathing patterns for use in advances in space travel.
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“It’s a very political, very fabulistic fairy tale about love and coming together..., about how we are told to stay apart for stupid reasons when we are all together,” del Toro, a 52-year-old, previous Academy Award nominee, told Reuters.
The film is one of 21 US and international movies vying for the Golden Lion that will be awarded on Sept. 9 after days of screenings, parties and red carpet glamour.
‘The Shape of Water’ features a fantastical creature - a cross between human and fish with glowing spots on its skin - to point to “the otherness” people so often reject, Del Toro said.
But the notion of otherness is evoked through other characters as well, be it Elisa’s black friend Zelda, played by Octavia Spencer, or her secretly gay neighbor, played by Richard Jenkins.
