带着新鲜出炉的奥斯卡最佳影片光环，《水形物语》（The Shape of Water）已成为本周末上映的最热门电影之一。
其实，早在影片上映前，因为和《三块广告牌》（Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri）的“同门大PK”（两部片都是福克斯探照灯出品）,《水形物语》早就勾起许多影迷的好奇心。
作为“墨西哥三杰之一”的吉尔莫·德尔·托罗（Guillermo del Toro），该片是他最私人化的一部作品（most personal work）,《水形物语》有太多“卖点”（selling point）——
跨物种的爱恋；
唯美的文艺片调调儿；
对冷战思维、边缘人群、种族歧视等诸多问题的隐喻。
以及，大概也是最适合当新闻标题的一点，这是奥斯卡创立近90年以来，引进中国速度最快的奥斯卡最佳影片。
The movie is set to open across Chinese mainland on March 16, merely 12 days later than it took home the best picture of this year’s Academy Awards, making it to be screened in China earlier than any other Oscar winners for best picture since the Academy Awards was founded around 90 years ago.
吉尔莫·德尔·托罗（Guillermo del Toro）
因为很早前，读到一篇报道，说“陀螺”在自己位于洛杉矶郊区的家中收藏有美猴王（Monkey King）铜像。
虽然，悟空在我国是家喻户晓的英雄形象，但在海外，他的“知名度”其实并没有那么高。所以，发现“陀螺”居然收藏孙悟空，还是蛮意外。
Del Toro's home, which is located in the outskirts of Los Angeles, has a bronze statuette of the Chinese mythological superhero Monkey King. The epitome of heroism from the 16th-century Chinese novel Journey to the West is a household name in China.
也很好奇地想知道，在导演数十年如一日对非人类生物（non-human creature）的喜爱中，中国的神话或传奇有没有对他产生过影响。
导演沉思片刻，滔滔不绝。
“When I was a kid, I stumbled upon the story of Monkey King. What I love is that it's a character who is unruly, mischievous and very compelling.
当我还是一个孩子的时候，我偶尔听说了美猴王的故事。我喜欢这个角色，因为他桀骜不驯、顽皮又光芒万丈。
“The other thing that I love from the Monkey King is that he is surrounded by characters that in their own quest for perfection. They get together and they can be better. I think that philosophy is very moving to me and it’s in The Shape of Water in a way, not directly.
“美猴王还让我认识到，他身处于一群追求自我完美的角色之中。他们聚在一起，他们因此变得更好。
“I didn’t think about the Monkey King for The Shape of Water, but you can see that I was affected by the tales of incomplete people coming together in the quest for virtue or good.
“准备《水形物语》时，我并没有想到美猴王。但你们也能看到，我有受到这样一种类型的故事的影响——那就是自身有缺陷的人们为了追求善行善果，合力而为。
“We don’t have a holy figure in the center like you do. We have a river god, not a Buddha, not a holy figure, but it is to be directly an influence from what I read and was influenced as a kid.
在影片中我们并没有设置一个圣人，就像你们（的神话小说）一样。但我们有一个河神，他不是佛祖，也不是圣人，而这种设置也是来自于我童年时以及在阅读中所受到的影响。
可惜采访时间有限，不能多问，好想知道，“陀螺”导演，您到底看的是哪个版本的《西游记》？这个打开方式比较清奇啊。
但其实细细想来，导演眼中的美猴王故事，还真和他的《水形物语》有些微妙的联系。
来自亚马逊（Amazon）的神秘鱼人，身处于故事中心，环绕他展开的，是一个对他的营救故事。而营救小分队的成员都是在世俗观点中，苦苦挣扎的边缘人群。他们渴望爱和理解，也因对鱼人的营救，而完成对自我的完美升华。
In the story, the key characters in the rescue mission of the amphibian creatures are shown struggling on the margins of society but yearning for love and understanding.
在故事里，当实验室的负责人曾一度以为，救走鱼人的是一支装备精良的特工小分队时。但其实，这是个非常草根的随意组合——
聋哑人艾丽莎因为不能言说，大多数时候是隔绝在自己的世界里。
她的男邻居，在摄影取代绘画的时代，是一个失意落魄的广告绘画师。
她在实验室最好的朋友，是一位黑人妇女，忍受无爱的婚姻和实验室里充满敌意的种族歧视。
Elisa Esposito, the cleaner, played by English actress Sally Hawkins, is isolated for being unable to speak. Her neighbor is a struggling advertisement illustrator who is despised for his sexual preference. Her best friend at the lab is a black woman suffering a loveless marriage at home and facing racial discrimination at work.
他们同是天涯沦落人，却做了一件很不可思议的事情。
电影评论家已经对《水形物语》有太多的解说。
但于普通观众而言，《水形物语》可以不是一个简单的“美女与野兽”（Beauty and the Beast）式的爱情故事，它可以让我们看到更多，也产生更多的共鸣。
即使生活让你困顿不堪，垂头丧气，即使你资质平庸，寂寂于人群，你也有成为英雄的一刻，也有获得惊世爱情的可能。
而对导演而言，《水形物语》是他写给经典老电影的一封情书。
对这个故事，他梦想多年。
For del Toro, The Shape of Water is "a love letter to classic cinema" that he has dreamed of directing for years.
这位出生于于瓜达拉哈拉的电影人，最早获得《水形物语》的灵感，居然是他6岁时看到《黑湖妖谭》（Creature from the Black Lagoon），当他看到影片中的两栖人性生物向女主角游去时，感觉浪漫极了。托罗希望他俩在一起，但结尾却不如他意。
When the Guadalajara-born filmmaker first watched the 1954 horror film Creature from the Black Lagoon at six years old, he felt that an underwater sequence involving an amphibious humanoid and a female swimmer could have been romantic. He thought they would end up together, but it didn't happen in that film.
《黑湖妖谭》（Creature from the Black Lagoon）
等到托罗自己可以执掌导筒，他就决定，要拍一部能让跨物种爱恋成功的电影，这样能去“治愈那些需要被治愈的人”。
He says he wanted it to end well for the creature, as well as make a film that "heals people the way they need to be healed".
为了这份执念。托罗退出预算高达1.5亿美元的“环太平洋2”的拍摄，而执着地奔向制作经费仅是个零头，只有1930万美元的《水形物语》。
Haunted by the idea for more than two decades, del Toro even quit directing the $150-million sci-fi film Pacific Rim Uprising early, and took up The Shape of Water, which was being made for only $19.3 million.
“从这个预算角度来说，这个是很难拍的电影。我们花费了大量的时间去精打细算。”
但对导演而言，这毕竟是他最雄心勃勃的电影，而且如此美丽。
"It's not an easy movie to make for that amount of money. We needed a lot of time to do it carefully," says del Toro, adding that the project was both ambitious and beautiful.
《环太平洋：雷霆再起》这部科幻片下周五上映了，托罗是制片人，想想也很有趣，能接连两个周末，都在国内大银幕上，看到和托罗有关系的电影。这算不算美猴王给种下的前缘呢？
其实，毫无疑问，在同时代热衷于创造电影怪物形象的导演里，托罗是其中的佼佼者。而他在这方面的天赋，早在1993年其导演处女作《魔鬼银爪》（Cronos）问世时，就有所展现。
Without question, Guillermo del Toro is one of the most passionate filmmakers of his generation when it comes to creating original movie monsters, a gift he immediately exhibited in his vampire-influenced directorial debut Cronos in 1993.
《魔鬼银爪》的故事有那么一点点儿《吸血惊情四百年》的意思。
故事开端于1536年，在墨西哥小城韦拉克鲁斯，一个炼金术士发明了一个获得永生的装置。四百年后之后，一个古董商人无意中得到了这个失传已久的器物，他也因此长生不老，但代价却是成为一个吸血鬼。
Cronos is a horror drama film written and directed by del Toro. The fictional story begins with an alchemist in Veracruz developed a mechanism that could give eternal life in the year of 1536. Four hundred years later, an antiques dealer finds the artifact that grants him immortal, but in the form of a vampire.
托罗一出手就很惊艳，《魔鬼银爪》也因此代表墨西哥去角逐66届奥斯卡的最佳外语片奖。
The movie was as selected as the Mexican entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 66th Academy Awards.
而之后，他在炮制大银幕的怪物方面，仿佛开挂了一般。
这些令人印象深刻的形象，既有《潘神的迷宫》（Pan’s Labyrinth）里的潘神，以及《环太平洋1》里的那些庞大的海怪，还有《地狱男爵》（Hellboy）中的鱼人亚伯。
Since then, he’s created such stunning creatures as the deity Pan for Pan’s Labyrinth, as well as the monolithic seas creatures the Kaiju for Pacific Rim，Abe Sapien in the Hellboy franchise.
《潘神的迷宫》（Pan’s Labyrinth）
而他对怪物的爱，又深植于墨西哥文化所特有的土壤之中。
在采访中，他说到：
“I think that Mexican creation and creativity is very different from the rest of North America. Mexico is a country where the magical things and the everyday exist side to side. So the fact that you can have a beautiful monster that is an amphibian god of the river, but is living in a bathtub. That is very Mexican.”
“墨西哥人所创造的形象和他们的创造力，迥异于北美洲其他国家和地区。墨西哥是是一个神奇与日常和谐共存的国度。所以，墨西哥人可以有一个外形美丽的两栖生物像神一样来自河中，他也可以生活在浴缸里。这种方式非常墨西哥。”
在墨西哥，托罗认为当地人对各种灵异的生物或现象都处之坦然。
“In Mexico, we have really close contact with bats, with ghosts, with primal gods of the forest and the water. You believe in the impossible existing every day. When you say you see a ghost, people say: 'OK, tell me about it'. They don't say: 'Are you crazy?' We accept the magical and realistic things at the same time.”
“我们和蝙蝠、鬼魂，乃至森林及河流中的神都没有距离感。对不可思议之事，墨西哥人每天都会觉得那没什么。如果你说你看到一个鬼魂了，人们会说：‘好，给我讲讲它。’他们不会说：‘你疯了吧？’我们就是这样，同时接受超现实和现实的东西。”
“陀螺”今年53岁，对于导演而言，这还是最好的年华，岁月积累了阅历和名声。
加上这次拿奖拿到手发软的《水形物语》，也许，“陀螺”真的会为怪兽片的爱好者们，创造一个大银幕上的怪兽宇宙呢。
