{"id":117043,"date":"2017-09-10T04:03:10","date_gmt":"2017-09-10T08:03:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=117043"},"modified":"2017-09-10T04:03:10","modified_gmt":"2017-09-10T08:03:10","slug":"del-toros-the-shape-of-water-wins-golden-lion-at-venice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2017\/09\/10\/del-toros-the-shape-of-water-wins-golden-lion-at-venice\/","title":{"rendered":"Del Toro’s ‘The Shape of Water’ wins Golden Lion at Venice"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Guillermo<\/a>
Guillermo del Toro (Photo by Gage Skidmore, CC BY-SA 3.0<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

VENICE, Italy \u2014 Guillermo del Toro’s monster thriller \u201cThe Shape of Water\u201d took top prize at the Venice Film Festival on Saturday, capping an 11-day event where the demons of social division and environmental disaster loomed large on the screen.<\/p>\n

Del Toro was named winner of the Golden Lion by a jury headed by U.S. actress Annette Bening, beating contenders including George Clooney’s \u201cSuburbicon\u201d and Alexander Payne’s \u201cDownsizing.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Mexican director said he hoped his victory would inspire young directors to \u201chave faith in whatever you have faith in.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIn my case, it’s monsters,\u201d said the 52-year-old director of films rich in demons and other fantastical creatures, including \u201cHellboy\u201d and \u201cPan’s Labyrinth.\u201d<\/p>\n

The victory gives immediate awards-season momentum to \u201cThe Shape of Water,\u201d the story of a mute young woman, played by Sally Hawkins, who falls for a mysterious sea creature being held at a high-security lab. Many viewers in Venice fell for the movie’s audacious mix of genres: It’s a monster movie, a Cold War thriller, social-issues drama and even, at times, a musical.<\/p>\n

Del Toro said his win was a vindication for monster movies, science fiction and other sometimes-derided cinema genres.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a beautiful encouragement, a beautiful act of love, and I think it is something very necessary,\u201d he told reporters. \u201cIt’s about time that we understand that you cannot only legitimize certain genres\u201d and not others.<\/p>\n

Del Toro said it had been his \u201clife’s mission\u201d to show that genre films can be intelligent, artistic and beautiful.<\/p>\n

The 74th edition of the world’s oldest film festival brought stars including Clooney, Matt Damon and Jennifer Lawrence to the canal-crossed Italian city’s lush Lido island.<\/p>\n

Del Toro’s film was one of several in the lineup that looked anxiously at humanity’s treatment of the Earth and one another.<\/p>\n

Similar concerns showed up in the small-town rage depicted in Martin McDonagh’s \u201cThree Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri\u201d; in the spiritual agonies of Paul Schrader’s eco-drama \u201cFirst Reformed\u201d; in the migrants fleeing war, drought and hunger in Ai Weiwei’s documentary \u201cHuman Flow\u201d; and in \u201cmother!\u201d, Darren Aronofsky’s wild parable of Mother Earth under attack.<\/p>\n

The festival’s runner-up Grand Jury Prize went to Israeli director Samuel Maoz’s \u201cFoxtrot,\u201d a compelling study of a family’s grief and the way trauma echoes through the generations.<\/p>\n

Maoz, who won the Golden Lion in 2009 for his war film \u201cLebanon,\u201d has received some negative reaction in Israel because \u201cFoxtrot\u201d is critical of the army, the country’s most respected institution.<\/p>\n

Maoz said no society could flourish when \u201ccritics are considered to be traitors.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I criticize the place I live, I do it because I worry,\u201d he said. \u201cI do it because I want to protect it. I do it from love.\u201d<\/p>\n

France’s Xavier Legrand was named best director for his first full-length film \u201cCustody,\u201d which also won the festival’s first-feature prize.<\/p>\n

Palestinian stage veteran Kamel El Basha was named best actor for Lebanese director Ziad Doueiri’s drama \u201cThe Insult.\u201d Britain’s Charlotte Rampling took the best actress prize for Andrea Pallaoro’s film \u201cHannah.\u201d<\/p>\n

Other winners included Warwick Thornton’s Australian Western \u201cSweet Country,\u201d which won a Special Jury Prize, and McDonagh’s \u201cThree Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri,\u201d which took the trophy for best screenplay.<\/p>\n

U.S. actor Charlie Plummer, 18, was named best young performer for portraying a lonely boy who befriends a tired old racehorse in Andrew Haigh’s \u201cLean on Pete.\u201d<\/p>\n

Italian director Susanna Nicchiarelli’s \u201cNico, 1988,\u201d a biopic of the former Velvet Underground singer Nico, won the Horizons competition, which focuses on newer directors and edgier fare.<\/p>\n

Venice has a track record of launching films toward Hollywood awards success. This year’s edition produced a crop of potential acting nominees, including Frances McDormand for \u201cThree Billboards,\u201d Helen Mirren and Donald Sutherland for \u201cThe Leisure Seeker\u201d and Jennifer Lawrence for \u201cmother!\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

VENICE, Italy \u2014 Guillermo del Toro’s monster thriller \u201cThe Shape of Water\u201d took top prize at the Venice Film Festival …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":117044,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,106],"tags":[23460,10466,23459,23461],"class_list":["post-117043","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","category-hollywood","tag-golden-lion","tag-guillermo-del-toro","tag-the-shape-of-water","tag-venice","mauthors-jill-lawless-and-sian-watson","mauthors-the-associated-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117043","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=117043"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117043\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/117044"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=117043"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=117043"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=117043"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}