Frankenstein

Really nice cinematography, particularly with the ending and him looking over the sunset. At his birth, he is told by Victor that the sun is life and they embrace it together, and now, after being told by Victor that “maybe we can both be human” he is choosing to live. This quote from Victor also shows he knows he was acting as a monster too. I can’t get over the fact that all the sets were real and not green screen it’s actually insane. Del Toro played very well on the idea of transitioning from the creation being the monster to Frankenstein being the monster. He does this shot of Victor where his hair covers one eye so you can see one eye poking out and that plays on the first shot of the creation near the ship where you can only see one eye, and the other is hidden. It shows the transfer of being the monster from the creation to Victor really well. Also, the whole idea that Victor is actually the monster is used very well. The fact the creation only learns words when they are taught to him with love is a good example of how he has natural emotion (“Victor”, “Elizabeth”, anything taught to him by his friend in the woods). The creation also just wants to be loved and understood, but learns to be violent from others, showing it’s not natural to be that violent, and those who are, i.e. Victor are are less natural so more monsterish. It’s sad how Victor had such a great chance to be a better father than his own but threw it away. This kind of highlights what I get from Victor in terms of his accountability; he blames everything on his daddy issues in his story, but then doesn’t try to be a good father figure. I could talk for ages about the use of red too. When Victor’s a little boy, his mother is always wearing red, so it’s introduced as her colour, and when she dies, she leaves red (blood) all over him. When he first follows Elizabeth, played by the same actress as his mother, she has a red umbrella. When she comes to leave Victor, her hat and scarf were red too, but surround her face similar to his mother in her casket. They both looked the same when they left him! So it’s like history repeating itself for him, and when he kills Elizabeth, her white wedding dress turns red with blood, making her look like his mum. After his mother’s death, he’s seen wearing a red neck scarf symbolising him carrying his mother with him. There’s a shot after his mother is taken away where half his face is red with blood from his mother and the other is where his father struck him in his lesson, showing his makeup is from both mother and father. His white shirt is also stained with red blood, white representing purity and innocence and that being ‘stained’ by the events of that day. At the end, the creation says to Victor “go now, creator, fade away”, directly referencing what the old man in the forest told him: “forgive, forget … choose to let it all fade”. He says to Victor that he forgives him, he is immortal, so he will forget, and he tells Victor that he can fade, showing he is allowing this to be in the past, and demonstrating the old man’s “true measure of wisdom”, which he clearly took to heart. This also shows he learns from love not hate, which I spoke about earlier. Very, very clever stuff throughout from Del Toro.Incredible fucking film. Pacing - 8.5/10Acting - 9/10 (jacob elordi carried)Plot - 8/10Cinematography - 10/10Ending - 9/10Writing - 10/10Overall - 9.5/10