The Golden Labyrinth: The Unique Films of Guillermo Del Toro

Steve Earles

Noir Publishing 2009

Web: http://www.noirpublishing.co.uk

Noir Publishing is a small English publishing company which has been wowing the market with some truly top notch cinema titles. The Dead Walk, offered a definitive look at Zombie films, while Flowers from Hell offered a superb examination of Japanese Horror. Their titles are marked by superb production values, glossy presentation, high quality illustrations and erudite content; The Golden Labyrinth it is no exception.

Taking the strange, wonderful and enigmatic cinema of Guillermo Del Toro Steve Earles offers us the very first comprehensive examination of Del Toro’s work. Extensively illustrated it includes over 200 images including many rare photographs, ad mats & posters.

Earles opens with a solid profile of Del Toro and then moves into extensive coverage of each of his films. This includes an extremely generous synopsis, outlines of significant themes and finishing with a very insightful analysis of each film. This is probably the most extensive coverage Del Toro’s works have ever received and is matched with a deep understanding of his work; one cannot accuse Earles of not digging below the surface. Earles is keenly aware of the themes, motifs and ideas behind Del Toro’s films as well as his astute use of symbolism and imagery. He also covers such significant issues as production costs, budgets and so on.

Along the way we also get to experience Del Toro direct by a generous helping of quotes as well as some unusual background to the subjects being covered. For example Earles discusses the esotericism of Alchemy in relation to the film Cronos and the influence of both The Spanish Civil War and the works of Goya on Pan’s Labyrinth.

This is a beautiful looking work, filled with images, packed with informed and erudite commentary and while offering lots of film summaries, is not simply a compendium of reviews. It is very easy for a retrospective on a director’s work to end up as a series of loosely connected film reviews; instead Earles offers a textured and reflective work examining the vision of one of the most innovative of modern directors with insight and quite some erudition!

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This review will appear in Volume 2 No.6 (2009) of the digital and print edition of Synergy Magazine.

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