i mean isn’t “authentically Gothic” kind of a contradiction in terms in that what’s gothic is intrinsically kind of kitschy and excessive and theatrical. do the complaints about seriousness in the same piece mean that his films are inauthentically gothic in that they’re too authentic to be gothic?? is authenticity bad or not?
i guess i’m not against critiquing the weird mix of bland sincerity and “underdog” genre trappings (haven’t seen the movie, just thinking of a bunch of midbudget indiegames with this same mix) but it feels useless to critique that within the movie review format as if it’s a case of one isolated dude and his directorial choices as opposed to the world in which those choices are made, recieve funding and support, resonate with particular people for whatever reason etc. like music writing that acts as if the landscape of modern pop music is a consequence of the personal decisions of a handful of name stars, with the rest of the industry just vaguely tagging along. i think writing in this format can’t help but become a kind of dopey moralism in which whatever shmucks happen to be the “name” at the forefront of some particular tendency are blurred into being the personal avatars of it, setting the course the rest of us follow, and critiqued on that basis rather than looking at the actual dynamics between individual works and global tendencies and the way that comes about. like regardless of the crack at reassuring auteurism it’s hard not to get the idea from this piece that del toro is himself, personally, the one pushing a kind of sanitised genre vision into being a movement of the worldwide film market. “in a world already being run on dangerous fantasies, the last thing we need is another critical writer who acts as though the cultural ramifications of this stuff is purely a result of moral indiscretions on the part of Great Men”