Christopher SoallShutter Island: A Review
April 13th 2010 12:05
From the sight of a ferry appearing from the fog, going towards the island, through the ominous warning that the bluffs are the only way on or off the island; all the way through to the final shot of the solitary lighthouse framing a seemingly endless sea, ‘Shutter Island’ is unyielding in its approach to the idea of the criminally insane.
And indeed, the cinematic techniques utilised mirror that approach in the efforts of the protagonist, Teddy Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio), who is relentlessly trying to uncover the truth behind the unusual practices on the island, and what has happened to a dangerous patient who has escaped and simply can’t be found.
Director Martin Scorcese opts out of an easy, exposition heavy introduction, and throws the audience right into the chaos, with the use of a piece of music which has strong brass repetition that sounds like an menacing fog horn, and that steadily builds and builds as the characters are driven to the institution. It crescendos as the gates are opened; and the patients are outside doing fairly menial gardening duties.
This is a perfect microcosm for the film, in a world where nothing is as it seems; where the doctor that serves as a liaison for the marshals (Ben Kingsley) seems to be intent on being evasive, and where the patients seem to be under some sort of controlling influence that amounts to more than just the psychotropic drugs that are being administered free and easily.
Matters are complicated too, for our protagonist, as he is haunted by flashbacks of his discovery and liberation of Dachau, as well as the wife that he lost to a tragic apartment fire. Even his partner Chuck, who he soon realises is the only person on the island that he can trust, suffers from not only the lack of information that the doctors and orderlies are providing, but the ulterior motive that Teddy himself is hiding.
While a vicious storm knocks out some of the power, and the patients escape the confines of their respective wards, Teddy and Chuck venture into the ward for more answers, and to try and find the man that Teddy believes is responsible for the fire that killed his wife. Fragments of the truth become apparent to the marshals, but Daniels becomes increasingly isolated, and breathlessly, the film leads up to the anguished, overpowering twist that even makes the audience feel that the cinema screen is a corrupt asylum that they simply can’t escape from.
‘Shutter Island’ is a beautifully crafted psychological thriller; with everything from the ambiguous characters, to the meticulously thought through mise-en-scene, adding to this world that seems to keep growing and making it more and more difficult for the marshals to uncover the truth. As Teddy ventures deeper and deeper into the complexities of the hierarchy that runs ‘Shutter Island’, we really sympathise with him, as the flashbacks serve as nothing but devices to confuse us, with the same role being occupied by different actors and actresses; and while the strain manifests itself as tears streaming from Leonardo DiCaprio’s eyes, it appears on the audience’s faces as a slightly curled top lip, but we get more clued up when he does; and so feel his pain when all is revealed in the painful denoument.
With the inexorable brass pounding on the soundtrack serving to lineate the action, and the recurring theme of things falling, from the gentle ash when he has a flashback to his wife in the apartment, to the letters falling in the office of the concentration camp he helps to liberate, all the way through to the real-time pounding of the rain – it cleverly symbolises the world around him, and how it seems to be falling around his very ears.
The only thing that I will say to the film’s detriment is that it perhaps tries to deal with a little too many themes, and while the slow motion of the aforementioned letters falling around the office is a lovely semantic platform – I find that all of the Dachau flashbacks are just a little unnecessary, and the added conflict that he has with the German head of the asylum, while wonderfully dimensionalise Daniel’s character and what he is going through, add another strand that is never truly and satisfactorily concluded.
However, that is a fairly minor complaint to make about an otherwise excellently crafted film, with one of DiCaprio’s finest performances, and a climax that is very hard-hitting, but convincingly so.
It is a journey that I thoroughly recommend is taken.
And indeed, the cinematic techniques utilised mirror that approach in the efforts of the protagonist, Teddy Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio), who is relentlessly trying to uncover the truth behind the unusual practices on the island, and what has happened to a dangerous patient who has escaped and simply can’t be found.
Director Martin Scorcese opts out of an easy, exposition heavy introduction, and throws the audience right into the chaos, with the use of a piece of music which has strong brass repetition that sounds like an menacing fog horn, and that steadily builds and builds as the characters are driven to the institution. It crescendos as the gates are opened; and the patients are outside doing fairly menial gardening duties.
This is a perfect microcosm for the film, in a world where nothing is as it seems; where the doctor that serves as a liaison for the marshals (Ben Kingsley) seems to be intent on being evasive, and where the patients seem to be under some sort of controlling influence that amounts to more than just the psychotropic drugs that are being administered free and easily.
Matters are complicated too, for our protagonist, as he is haunted by flashbacks of his discovery and liberation of Dachau, as well as the wife that he lost to a tragic apartment fire. Even his partner Chuck, who he soon realises is the only person on the island that he can trust, suffers from not only the lack of information that the doctors and orderlies are providing, but the ulterior motive that Teddy himself is hiding.
While a vicious storm knocks out some of the power, and the patients escape the confines of their respective wards, Teddy and Chuck venture into the ward for more answers, and to try and find the man that Teddy believes is responsible for the fire that killed his wife. Fragments of the truth become apparent to the marshals, but Daniels becomes increasingly isolated, and breathlessly, the film leads up to the anguished, overpowering twist that even makes the audience feel that the cinema screen is a corrupt asylum that they simply can’t escape from.
‘Shutter Island’ is a beautifully crafted psychological thriller; with everything from the ambiguous characters, to the meticulously thought through mise-en-scene, adding to this world that seems to keep growing and making it more and more difficult for the marshals to uncover the truth. As Teddy ventures deeper and deeper into the complexities of the hierarchy that runs ‘Shutter Island’, we really sympathise with him, as the flashbacks serve as nothing but devices to confuse us, with the same role being occupied by different actors and actresses; and while the strain manifests itself as tears streaming from Leonardo DiCaprio’s eyes, it appears on the audience’s faces as a slightly curled top lip, but we get more clued up when he does; and so feel his pain when all is revealed in the painful denoument.
With the inexorable brass pounding on the soundtrack serving to lineate the action, and the recurring theme of things falling, from the gentle ash when he has a flashback to his wife in the apartment, to the letters falling in the office of the concentration camp he helps to liberate, all the way through to the real-time pounding of the rain – it cleverly symbolises the world around him, and how it seems to be falling around his very ears.
The only thing that I will say to the film’s detriment is that it perhaps tries to deal with a little too many themes, and while the slow motion of the aforementioned letters falling around the office is a lovely semantic platform – I find that all of the Dachau flashbacks are just a little unnecessary, and the added conflict that he has with the German head of the asylum, while wonderfully dimensionalise Daniel’s character and what he is going through, add another strand that is never truly and satisfactorily concluded.
However, that is a fairly minor complaint to make about an otherwise excellently crafted film, with one of DiCaprio’s finest performances, and a climax that is very hard-hitting, but convincingly so.
It is a journey that I thoroughly recommend is taken.
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