Guillermo del Toro: “I Have Seen the Three Avatars — They Are Absolute Masterpieces”

Guillermo del Toro made a pitstop over at Konbini Video, which is basically France’s version of the Criterion Closet, but better. The video, uploaded yesterday, is an absolute gem.

I won’t get into the entire thing, but del Toro does namecheck a bunch of influences including “Mad Max,” “Freaks,” “Planet of the Apes,” “Taxi Driver,” “The Devils,” “Notorious,” “Vertigo,” and “Los Olvidados.” In between all that, he defends his jury’s decision to give “Dheepan” the Palme d’Or in 2015, and recounts his time as assistant director, for insurance purposes, on William Friedkin’s final film, “The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial.”

If you want to know what films del Toro considers to be the greatest ever made, check out the top 10 he submitted for 2022’s Sight & Sound poll:

Barry Lyndon
Goodfellas
City Lights
Close Encounters of the Third Kind
Bride of Frankenstein
8 1/2
Nazarin
No Country For Old Men
Shadow of Doubt
The Magnificent Ambersons

Regardless, in the Konbini conversation, del Toro has much praise for James Cameron’s “Avatar”—maybe not as insane as Michael Mann, who had actually included Cameron’s film as his 10 greatest ever made for Sight & Sound—but still, del Toro uses the “M” word, and yes, he’s one of the few who have seen the upcoming third chapter (“Fire and Ash”).

I’ve seen the three Avatars. They are absolute masterpieces. I know where it’s going and I think it’s going to surprise a lot of people […] I can’t say anything about [the third] but I can say there are very few Americans that have created an entire mythology. You have [George] Lucas. You have the entire ‘Wizard of Oz’ mythology with Frank Baum. Jim is creating that with ‘Avatar’ and he’s going to take you places.

This isn’t the first time del Toro has heaped praise on Cameron’s creation. After watching ‘The Way of Water,’ he wrote that it was “a staggering achievement,” adding that it was “chock-full of majestic vistas and emotions at an epic, epic scale — a master at the peak of his powers.”

Cameron, never one to shy away from hyperbole, has been banging the drum hard for his upcoming “Avatar: Fire and Ash.” He’s said he believes the film is the best of the ‘Avatar’ franchise and that he has so many great ideas for it, it’ll probably be even longer than the last one — which already clocked in at a whopping three hours and twelve minutes. Oh, and apparently Cameron’s wife, Suzy, saw a version of Fire and Ash late last year and, according to her filmmaker husband, was so overwhelmed with emotion that she was left speechless — bawling her eyes out — for nearly four hours. lol.

Fire & Ash,’ the third installment in Cameron’s decade-spanning franchise, is slated for a December 19, 2025 release.