Film: The shape of water

[liv]

Reasons for watching it: my general social media circles described this a film about a mute woman who falls in love with a monster, and there was that interesting quote by del Toro about relating to monsters: Monsters are evangelical creatures for me. When I was a kid, monsters made me feel that I could fit somewhere, even if it was... an imaginary place where the grotesque and the abnormal were celebrated and accepted. So I expected it to be pretty and thought-provoking and possibly sexy, and was keen to see it.

Circumstances of watching it: I just managed to squeeze in a date with jack between Valentines' Day when I was babysitting so another couple in our polycule could have a date, and my partners' kid's birthday celebration. So we went out for somewhat rushed, though delicious sushi after work, and then to the cinema.

Verdict: The shape of water is an amazing spectacle.

I am not quite sure what to say about The shape of water. I was almost too immersed in it to talk about things like the cinematography, the characterization, the plot and so on. It felt like a single work of art, even being feature length. And it's visually beautiful, but not only that, the script and the images seemed completely integrated. When we came out, we just kind of looked at eachother, we couldn't think of any words to describe the emotional experience.

But that's not much of a review! I really enjoyed Sally Hawkins' expressive face. I'm so used to Hollywood heroines having completely expressionless, doll-like faces (and the men don't express many emotions either, beyond anger), it was a breath of fresh air to have someone so vivid. And yes, she's a verbal actor playing a mute character, which is politically not great, but she's so lovely in the role, a bit reminiscent of Tautou's Amélie in a way. I loved that the film is about friendship more than romance, I loved Elisa's relationships with her gay housemate Giles and her work colleague Zelda (played brilliantly by Octavia Spencer from Hidden Figures.

And the romance between Elisa and the fish-like South American god is incredibly original. I normally dislike any sort of inter-species stuff, but somehow tSoW managed to avoid my squicks in that direction. I think a lot of what was brilliant was the portrayal of Elisa and her fish-god learning to communicate, whereas a lot of romance arcs just ignore the barriers that prevent the couple from getting to know eachother properly, so that their connection seems completely arbitrary. I really admired the way that the fish-god is never anything other than a monster, the film doesn't ever soften that. It's not a Beauty & The Beast tale about him turning out to be human after all under his horrifying exterior.

I had less time for the thriller-ish plot. I don't care about Cold War drama, and Strickland, the antagonist, was just gratuitously awful. I felt like the film spent too much time exploring his manpain while also anviliciously showing him as committing every morally evil action in the playbook, torture, tick, sexual harassment, tick, materialistic greed, tick, bigotry, tick, pointless violence, tick. I don't understand what was added by giving screen time to his relationship with his wife, let alone an explicit sex scene. I was a bit more interested in the morally ambiguous Russian spy, partly because he's morally ambiguous rather than just evil.

The film is more gory and horror-like than I'm usually into, but definitely worth it for the beautiful intensity. It came across as very mythological, and in some ways a classical tragedy. Though jack read the ending as being about hope and healing, rather than my interpretation which is that everybody, good and evil alike, ends up dead. The optimistic view makes more sense with the whole Fairy tale for troubled times concept, I suppose.

I'm extremely glad I saw this on the big screen. I wouldn't recommend it to all, but it was a really memorable experience.

Comments

[monanotlisa]

It's such a good movie; I really enjoyed it. Yes, the antagonist is totally over the top...but Del Toro tends to not leave much room for guesswork or gushing over villains, and after Star Wars, I appreciate that -- too much Stormtrooper merchandise, too much Darth Vader hype, too much Kylo Ren adoration.

[anais_pf]

I went in expecting to find it silly (based on the trailer I saw) and ended up really liking it. The story is so original, and it is so beautifully executed. There were a few places where I had to close my eyes.