Guillermo del Toro’s momentous Frankenstein takes place in 1857, nearly 40 years after Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus was written, and six years after the English novelist passed away. Setting the story nearly four decades after the original one suggests that the 65-year-old Mexican filmmaker, who also penned the movie’s screenplay, took a lot of artistic freedoms. This is not entirely true. Del Toro’s film is a lot more faithful to the 1818 book than its most famous predecessor, James Whale’s Frankenstein (1931), featuring Boris Karloff.
The story begins at the “farthermost north”, where the monster (Jacob Elordi) attacks a Scandinavian ship stuck in the ice. The vessel is sheltering his creator Victor Frankenstein (Oscar Isaac). The hapless creature is desperately seeking to reach his “father” in the hope of taking his own life. Rewind a couple of decades, and Victor Frankenstein is a child obsessed with his father’s medical trade, and hellbent on finding a way to make the human body immortal. The sudden and premature death of both of his parents helps to spur his determination. He grows into a mad scientist. Doctor Frankenstein showcases an animated human head and partial torso to a crowd of perplexed scientists (one of the movie’s most memorable scenes). They warn him not to play God.
Frankenstein collects human parts from the gallows and takes them to a remote castle, where he begins to assemble them into a brand new individual. The images are impressive: limbs, muscles and organs are gingerly sewn together, in a film experiment guaranteed to make Dr. Gunther von Hagens (the German anatomist/artist of Body Worlds) green with envy. Victor sticks a large metal rod to the top of the castle in order to capture electricity from the next thunderstorm, and to kick-start his nameless creation into life.
Wealthy merchant Harlander (Christoph Waltz) insists that the doctor inserts his brain into the creature, but the man is riddled with syphilis and Frankenstein is concerned that the bacteria could infect his marvellous invcention. The creature finally comes to life, and it’s much stronger than his creator anticipated. So he locks his creation in the basement. Victor’s younger brother William (Felix Kammerer) and his beautiful fiancée Elizabeth Lavenza (Mia Goth) visit the castle and encounter the poor monster locked in the basement. Victor seems to be enamoured with Elizabeth, and the creature too becomes infatuated with her. These dynamics of the three-way competition for the female character is rather confusing, and the nature of relationship of the two brothers is not very clear.
The creature has a supernatural strength and inexplicable flesh regeneration abilities,. He is seemingly immortal. He decides to hunt down his creator. Victor learns the hard way that his God complex comes with a very high price. He subsequently has to atone for his medical caprices. The writing is on the wall: we’re creatures of God, and we should never attempt to seize the creator’s seat.
The biggest difference between Del Toro’s and Whale’s films is the portrayal of the creature. While the 1931 film featured a mumbling Boris Karloff with an enormous forehead – the image of the Frankenstein monster to which most of us have grown accustomed -, Del Toro opts for a highly intelligent, eloquent and virile creature. The choice of Elordi is not a random one: the 28-year-old Australian heartthrob is best remembered for his sexy roles in Sofia Coppola’s Priscilla and Emerald Fennell’s Saltburn, both from two years ago. His Hollywood superstar face, chiselled body, peachy bum and bulgy manhood are featured prominently throughout the two-and-half-hour movie. He starts out bald, grey, wearing nothing but his underwear, and in athletic position. He vaguely resembles Myron’s Discobulos (the famous “discus thrower statue), except for the large scars all over his body. His hair then grows, and he dons a furry coat. Add some shades to the fashionable “monster” and you’d be forgiven for seeing the late Ozzy Osbourne. Del Toro’s/Elordi’s empowered representation of the creature is much closer to the book than Whale’s and Karloff’s frail and pitiable one.
Divided into two parts, “Victor’s Tale” and “The Creature’s Tale”, Frankenstein seeks to subvert the power dynamics between the creature and the creator. The creature wishes to become the master, and he has every means of achieving this. Violence is an acceptable currency because it is not based on hate (“it’s not out of hate that the hunter kills the wolf and the wolf kills the sheep”, the monster justifies his destructiveness). He is thus prepared to shred human bodies into pieces where necessary. There is no shortage of very graphic violence here: limbs twisted, heads crushed, large wounds exposed.
In addition to the gruesome, Frankenstein also boasts moments of intense beauty, such as the two scenes in which the monster falls underwater (Guillermo del Toro won the Golden Lion eight years ago for the ultra-wet Shape of Water). Overall, this is an impressive piece of filmmaking, intoxicated with artistic ambition. It will win hearts of viewers worldwide. Let’s just wait and see whether Elordi’s rock star looks will eventually replace Karloff’s prosthetic forehead as the most recognisable image of the Frankenstein monster.
Frankenstein premiered in the Official Competition of the 82nd Venice International Film Festival, where this piece was originally written. Also showing in San Sebastian and at the BFI London Film Festival. In cinemas on Friday, October 17th.
