Cronos

 

(1993) Written and directed by Guillermo del Toro; Starring: Federico Luppi, Ron Perlman, Claudio Brook, Margarita Isabel and Tamara Xanath; Available on Blu-ray and DVD 

Rating: ****

 

“The first movie articulates your universe. To me, Cronos contains the essence of what I want to do. I always was interested in the stories of familiar relationships that are either decomposing or decomposed. Even in the short, “Geometria,” [an early film school project] that’s there – the idea that the family either implodes or destroys itself, or finds union in the imperfections. It’s in every movie I do. Every one. Even the most commercial ones.” – Guillermo del Toro (from 2010 interview)

“When filming Cronos, his first big movie, Guillermo was very humble about the responsibility he was charged with. And being somebody who has a true passion and reverence for the medium, he put a lot of pressure on himself. But once he started filming, it seemed like he had been doing it his whole life. The minute I saw the imagery, I knew I was dealing with somebody in the same class as Luis Buñuel and François Truffaut.” – Ron Perman (excerpted from his essay, “Resurrection,” Guillermo del Toro – Cabinet of Curiosities)

If vampire-themed literature and films have taught us anything, the path to immortality comes at a terrible cost. The selfish pursuit of abnormally extended life is often fraught with disastrous results, at the expense of the innocent, and the forfeiture of our humanity. Sadly, in recent years, the concept of vampirism seems to have shifted from fantasy to reality among the ultra-wealthy. Filmmaker Guillermo del Toro’s debut feature film, Cronos, explores the pitfalls of such a perilous and ultimately hollow pursuit. It’s an innovative take on vampire lore, in which the word “vampire” is never used.* 

* Fun Fact #1: This was an intentional omission on the writer/director’s part, who felt that audiences already knew enough about vampires to deduce what the main character became. 

In the film’s prologue, we learn about the origin of the Cronos device, created by a 16^th century alchemist who fled to Mexico to escape the Spanish Inquisition. Skip to present-day Mexico City, where Jesus Gris (Federico Luppi), an elderly shopkeeper, runs an antique store. He uncovers the artifact hidden inside the base of an archangel statuette and inadvertently activates it. The gold clockwork device, resembling a giant scarab, latches onto his hand, drawing a copious amount of blood (an interior view of the mechanism reveals a series of gears and an insect trapped within). */**/*** Angel (Ron Perlman), an American living in Mexico, purchases the statuette unaware that it’s now missing the coveted device. He brings it back to his ailing industrialist uncle, de la Guardia (Claudio Brook), who’s less than elated with the absence of the artifact. The enraged de la Guardia sends his nephew back to the shop to retrieve the Cronos device.  Meanwhile, Jesus finds his body changing. Despite his initial reluctance, he’s drawn to the device – the more he uses it, the younger his appearance. But there’s a price for employing the Cronos device, a craving for blood. At his uncle’s urging, Angel will stop at nothing to retrieve the ancient alchemist’s creation, including badgering, intimidation and physical violence. But death doesn’t come so easily for someone under the influence of the Cronos device. 

* Fun Fact #2: According to del Toro, the idea for the Cronos device originated from a curious fad in 1960s/1970s Mexico, in which shiny metallic beetles were encapsulated and worn as living jewelry. 

** Fun Fact #3: The film’s producers wouldn’t approve additional funds to depict the device’s inner workings, so del Toro sold his van for money to create the VW Beetle-sized interior replica, using gears from a 19^th century textile machine painted gold, and cow innards for the insect. 

*** Fun Fact #4: 13 gold-plated devices were created for the movie, with working mechanisms created by del Toro’s father-in-law. Sadly, all the originals were stolen.

Federico Luppi (who would later appear in del Toro’s The Devil’s Backbone) portrays a painfully believable and sympathetic lead – a kindly old man who falls into a situation far beyond his reckoning. There’s something profoundly unsettling about the device, but he uses it anyway. The promise of turning back the clock is far too enticing, becoming an addiction he can’t shake. As de la Guardia smugly points out to Jesus, there are rules (but what those rules precisely are, remain unknown). When he revives from what should have been a fatal car accident, he experiences an existential crisis, grappling with what he’s become.* There’s a refreshing tenderness to Jesus’ relationship with his granddaughter, Aurora (Tamara Xanath).**/*** When he returns from the dead, the first person he returns to is Aurora. She appears unfazed by his pallid, zombie-like appearance (somewhat resembling Christopher Lee’s creature in Curse of Frankenstein). Unlike countless other horror films, she doesn’t recoil in fear, but feels elation in seeing her grandfather again. She does what she can to make him comfortable in his compromised state,**** never once regarding him as a monster. There is something oddly endearing about how she prepares her toybox as a makeshift coffin for her beloved grandpa. 

* Fun Fact #5: The scene where Jesus reads his own obituary was based on an incident from del Toro when he was 21, in which he read an obituary in the paper for someone with the same name. 

** Fun Fact #6: Del Toro modeled the grandfather/granddaughter relationship off his own relationship with his grandmother. As indicated in the end credits, the film is dedicated to his grandmother, Josefina Camberos. 

*** Fun Fact #7: In a nod to Night of the Hunter (in which stolen money was concealed inside a little girl’s doll) Aurora hides the Cronos device in her treasured stuffed toy, a teddy bear. 

**** Fun Fact #8: The sequence where Jesus reaches inside a gash in his belly parallels a similar scene in David Cronenberg’s Videodrome.

Del Toro referred to his villains in Cronos as “capitalist vampires.”* There’s never any doubt about who the real monsters of the story are. De la Guardia feeds off the less economically fortunate, while Angel can’t wait for him to die, so he can inherit his uncle’s vast wealth. As described by del Toro, de la Guardia is literally a “hollow man.” De la Guardia lives in a sterile chamber, surrounded by life support equipment, with his diseased organs preserved in jars.** Vampirism is a fitting metaphor for a man who lives in a state worse than death but paradoxically desires more life. Besides being del Toro’s first film, Cronos also marks the filmmaker’s first collaboration with Ron Perlman. As de la Guardia’s nephew/henchman, Perlman delivers a nuanced, idiosyncratic performance, making his character surprisingly sympathetic. We feel bad for him, enduring constant abuse from his hateful, unscrupulous uncle. Fun little quirks make him more than a mere stereotype (Angel wants to get a nose job, but can’t quite decide on the right nose). We don’t want him to succeed, but we can’t help feeling a little sorry for him at the same time.   

* Fun Fact #9: Del Toro purposely depicted them as somewhat cartoonish as payback for Hollywood’s often less-than-flattering portrayal of Mexican characters. 

** Fun Fact #10: In his commentary, del Toro revealed that he based the character of de la Guardia on a real-life case of a recluse who lived in Jalisco, Mexico. After the untimely death of his wife, the man accumulated jars of his nails, hair and various excretions over the course of 45 years.

Despite being an early piece of work, Cronos exhibits all the hallmarks that we have come to associate with a del Toro film, incorporating Catholic imagery and concepts, deliberate color schemes, shrouded antiquities, clockwork devices, and a wealthy antagonist with a warped sense of morality. A common thread throughout his work, clearly articulated here, is that people in positions of unchecked power often possess an elevated sense of importance and invulnerability which ultimately becomes their undoing. There’s a lovely attention to detail in the visuals and story in this multi-layered film, which rewards upon repeated viewings. Like the eponymous device, everything is more than it seems. Guillermo del Toro’s penchant for artistry and innovation with a meager $2 million budget (not a small sum for a Mexican independent film) would set the stage for bigger projects with loftier budgets, but one doesn’t need to look any further than Cronos to appreciate the depth of his talent. 

 

Sources for this article: Criterion Blu-ray commentary by Guillermo del Toro; Cabinet of Curiosities, by Guillermo del Toro and Marc Scott Zicree; 2010 Interview with Guillermo del Toro (Criterion Blu-ray)