Watch: Guillermo Del Toro Thinks in Pure Colors

Shame on anyone who says watching a film is passive! When you watch a film, you’re actually doing several things at once. First and foremost, you pay attention to the nuts and bolts of the story. Almost as gripping, though, is what your retinae are doing. In certain filmmakers’ work, and Guillermo Del Toro is one of these filmmakers, the visual play acts as a complement to the story, such that if you were in a certain mood, you might simply look at the colors and not even notice the plot-character-setting scenario being laid out before you. This video by Quentin Dumas takes us on a lush tour of the colors Guillermo Del Toro likes best: red, blue, and yellow. These colors have meaning, certainly; who could deny the importance of a deep, decadent red in a dark film like ‘Crimson Peak,’ and who could consider the use of blue, the color of night, in the revelatory and mind-stretching ‘Pan’s Labyrinth’? These colors are coded, yes–but don’t try to figure out the code. You won’t be able to. Accept that they have an effect on you: a weakening of the resolve, a quickening of the pulse, the vaguest sense of dizziness. The less you try to figure out the "why" of these feelings, the happier you’ll be.