A stunning Frankenstein

We have grown up with the Boris Karloff and Christopher Lee versions of Frankenstein wherein the green-hued monster created by the good Dr Frankenstein mostly grunts to strike terror among those that cross his path as well as movie audience.

- SHREEKANT SAMBRANI

Therefore, it is something of a surprise that the latest film incarnation of Mary Shelley’s 1818 Gothic novel, written and directed by Guillermo del Toro, is aesthetically pleasing, visually lush, and morally unequivocal.

The Mexican auteur has made 13 films in his career, beginning 1993 with Cronos in Spanish. He uses fables, fairy tales, and monsters in most of his œuvre to convey a message of salvation in imperfection, with rich visual imagery. He finds “humans ... pedestrian ... monsters more fascinating and pure”. The many del Toro honours include the 2016 Oscars for best film and best director for The Shape of Water and the 2023 Oscar for the best animated feature Pinocchio.

del Toro, long obsessed with Frankenstein, had been preparing to film it for nearly two decades. He finally started it in 2023 and completed it this year. It was shown at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival, to much acclaim. The film takes some liberties with the novel, placing it in Victorian England instead of late eighteenth-century central Europe, but the theme and the spirit remain intact.