Bug in the Machine: Cronos

There's so much I like about Guillermo del Toro, his aesthetic, his use of practical effects (when he can), his continual casting of Ron Perlman, yet I don't really love his films. Pan's Labyrinth was awesome, but I don't care much for superhero movies. Hellboy I and II and Blade II are fine for what they are, but I can't view them as anything more than good. Even though I'm not a huge fan of his work, I'm excited that he gets to work because he creates some pretty amazing worlds.

Aside from The Devil's Backbone, Cronos may be de Toro's most restrained movie, which makes sense as it's his first feature. It's about an antiques dealer who finds a mechanism in one of his pieces and, upon activating it, is revitalized. Oh, it also gives him a powerful urge to drink blood. Meanwhile, a rich dying man has been looking for this item for years because he believes it will give him eternal life and keeps sending Ron Perlman to collect it from the antiques dealer. It's a variation on vampire lore which means I've front-loaded October with alternative takes on vampires, thus far.



Del Toro's got a great eye for set design and staging. The warehouse home of the sick man, de la Guardia (Claudio Brook), is sterile and eerie with tiny statues wrapped in plastic hanging from the ceiling and a museum of body parts removed from his person. On the other hand, the antiques dealer, Jesus Gris (Frederico Luppi), eventually moves to a shack on the roof of his house and the setting there is almost magical with shafts of light beaming down through holes in the ceiling. This instinct for creating memorable locations and sets is part of what makes del Toro's films so enthralling to look at.

These old men fighting over the mysterious mechanism each have a protector of sorts. De la Guardia has his nephew, Angel (Perlman) who goes out into the world and does the dirty business and Jesus has his innocent granddaughter who has a mysterious understand of the dangers her grandfather is getting into and a high tolerance for the insanely creepy. There's a lot of importance in character names: Angel de la Guardia means "guardian angel" and Jesus Gris means "gray Jesus." I really want to attach significance to the granddaughter's name, Aurora and I don't think it's a struggle. The rooftop shack fills with shafts of light from the sky and she is seen wearing a red and green jacket later in the film both of which make reference to aurora borealis. She is literally the light in the sky in Cronos.

It was very strange when I realized that Jesus was going to be the main character. I'm not used to movies that feature older people as the protagonists, let alone horror movies. It makes the events of the film that much more believable. Instead of some young person who just wants to live forever, it's a man approaching his last days. He has a happy life and is the guardian of his young grandchild. It's not much of a leap to see why he'd want to prolong his life. The same is true for the dying antagonist. It's a smart decision in a smart movie.

Cronos shot up to probably my second favorite del Toro movie with ease (behind Pan's Labyinth). I'd been contemplating buying the Criterion Blu Ray any time there is a 50% off sale, but balked. I made a huge mistake.

Stray observations I couldn't work in above
-- Ron Perlman likes to hitch himself to talented foreign filmmakers early. He's in this and Jean-Pierre Jeunet's The City of Lost Children. Both del Toro and Jeunet have worked with him multiple times.
-- The backwards funeral suit Jesus wears throughout the end of the film is a welcome bit of humor during some dark scenes. For some reason, it reminded me of the walking headless corpse in Re-Animator.
-- The funeral director and his view of himself as an artist struck me as an homage to Dead and Buried. I think this supports that theory:


And now... a rant.

I watched Cronos on Netflix Instead View right after watching a hitch-free episode of Twin Peaks on the same. However, whereas Twin Peaks was smooth as sil, Cronos had a consistently jerky image. Not enough to really hurt the viewing experience, but enough to be noticeable and annoying. Meanwhile, the sound was perfect. This leads me to believe that there is something wrong with the file Netflix uploaded to their servers (or however they get stuff on Instant View).

It's not enough that Netflix only has a small portion of their movies on Instant View. Or that movies are routinely being picked up and dropped from the roster. Or that some of the foreign movies are only available in dubbed format. But we also have to deal with glitchy Instant View titles? How can a company justify jacking up their prices or splitting streaming and DVD-by-mail when there are still so many issues with one of the options? Unless Netflix can offer nearly flawless playback and give the customer (nearly) everything they want from streaming (more selection, the option for subtitles both to avoid dubbing and for the hearing impaired, quality image, etc), they should never have even thought about charging people for Instant View.