According to director Guillermo del Toro, “the entire world we live in is fabricated,” and within this fabricated cosmos, there are two kinds of imaginations, two ways of living: one which favors the present world—the “Establishment”—and another which stands opposed to it. One kind uncritically affirms our present reality; the other, the one he prefers, rebels against it with “a beautiful anarchy.” Del Toro thus sees film as the medium for the imaginative and anarchic reinterpretation of the horrors of fascism. Film narrates a “spiritual reality” which funds a subversive counter-politics. In this essay, I bring del Toro into conversation with the theopolitical work of William Cavanaugh. I argue that despite del Toro’s rejection of Catholic faith, in two of his films, The Devil’s Backbone and Pan’s Labyrinth, he displays a distinctly Christian theological imagination.
The Institute for Cultural Engagement, an official program of Multnomah University and Biblical Seminary