Guillermo del Toro is one of those directors who’s signature aesthetic style of his productions is something I have a tremendous personal adoration for. His more commercial productions including the Hellboy films and Pacific Rim were simple, yet fun and well-executed for what they were. But while they may have attracted me to his visual style initially, what had garnered a much more profound fascination in me for del Toro’s work were his more ‘artistic’ productions that delve into certain historical backdrops and deftly intertwine and manifest certain conflicts and anxieties of said historical period with his own oddball blend of atmospheric dark fantasy and gothic horror.
When I’d first discovered that the roster for Best Animation at the 2018 Oscars had included some rather sub-par Hollywood-based productions such as Dreamworks’ Boss Baby and Blue Sky’s Ferdinand that were competing alongside some visually innovative and even ground-breaking international releases such as the spectacular UK-produced Loving Vincent, along with Cartoon Saloon’s 2017 production: The Breadwinner, I was somewhat disillusioned.
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