CRONOS

CRONOS is an original and revealing vampire tale told with a decidedly Latin-American twist. It's a wonderful melange of gothic horror, science fiction and family melodrama that cuts to the core of the struggle for eternal life. The story concerns a “cronos device” built by an alchemist in 1536 that endows its user with immortality and a thirst for blood. Following the inventor's death some 400 years later, the devise is discovered by a junkshop owner in modern-day Mexico who is immediately attracted to the idea of immortality. But the instructions for the device's use have fallen into the hands of an American industrialist dying of cancer. In a political metaphor not lost on Latin-American filmgoers, the American sends his ruthless nephew to procure the cronos device, so that he might be cured. CRONOS wheels with wild abandon from humor to tragedy without missing a step. With exceptional art direction, cinematography, and acting that walks that fine line between the overwrought and the sublime, Del Toro's debut feature is cinematic storytelling at its best.-Peter Taylor. In English with Spanish and English subtitles.