Guillermo del Toro praised Korean filmmakers Bong Jun Ho and Park Chang Wook, and was praised at a press conference at the Busan International Film Festival, portraying cultural similarities between Korea and Mexico while discussing his film “Frankenstein.”
“I am very adored by Director Bon and Director Park because they bring something confused, ridiculous, sublime, poetic, horrifying to the same film,” Del Toro said. “It’s not an American procedure on crime. It’s an existential, deep meditation, an incomplete investigation by an incomplete police, and it’s corrupt in itself.”
Del Toro cited Bon and “Great Relatives” and praised his “host” and his monster’s designs. “He uses it to talk about the Korean Association and the Korean family life. So he’s talking about what I do, specifically about culture.”
The Oscar-winning filmmaker expressed special praise for Park Chang Wook. “For me, Director Park is one of the most beautiful, hopeless and existential romantics in cinemas,” he said. “It’s very rare to find a romantic filmmaker. This doesn’t mean Fabio will hold a woman in his arms. It means a man who believes in the existential darkness of destiny, darkness, romanticism. He is the soul of twins in that sense.”
The director highlighted Korean film’s commitment to cultural idiosyncrasies surrounding commercial appeal. “I have a position about this genre that doesn’t commercialize the American market. They make it unique to Korea,” he said, adding that every time I want Korean films to feel a little more lively.”
Del Toro praised the country’s filmmakers for shunning “Manichang Ideas of Good and Evil in American Films,” citing films such as “I Saw the Devil” and “Train to To Busan” as examples of Korean film vitality.
The director also highlighted how he portrayed a connection between his own work and Korean genre films, using monsters and genre elements to explore cultural identity. “When they say, ‘What is Mexican about your film?’ I, I am very Mexican and my films have the same slope,” he said.
Speaking about his “Frankenstein” adaptation, Del Toro describes it as deeply autobiographical, filtered through his 60-year-old Catholic Mexican perspective. The film explores themes of forgiveness and imperfection that the director considers increasingly relevant.
“We live in an age where everything is polarized into something completely good or completely bad, and there is no oxygen for humanity on either side of them,” Del Toro said. “We all exist in the middle.”
