Thinking about "Shutter Island"

I’ve been catching up on movies lately, so unfortunately the bulk of my recent viewings have occurred at home, not in theaters. But hey, if you are wondering whether or not to rent, here’s my take!

In “Shutter Island,” man couple Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio team up again to tell the humorous story of finding love where you least expect it in a foreign country.
Or not. DiCaprio and Mark Ruffalo are federal agents investigating the disappearance of a patient at Shutter Island, an intensive inpatient mental hospital that houses only the most dangerous and violent of criminals. Through the film, the two dig and dig to find the truth of what happened to their missing subject.

There are 2 things inherent in any Martin Scorsese movie, especially if it was made in the last 10 years or so – everyone on screen is going to act their best, and it’s going to look first rate. Editing, cinematography, and Scorsese’s specialty – character – are all trademark excellent. Not one frame is wasted on anything dull in spite of a running time of just over 2 hours. While Scorsese aficionados have most likened the film to his remake of “Cape Fear,” I see little similarity apart from the thriller genre aspect. This is still Scorsese, so it is first and foremost about what people feel, who they are, and why they do the things they do. It is about great characters.

Read on, but important spoilers will be revealed:

The task of creating the film had to present some difficult challenges, because once the main reality of the film is exposed, we realize that we are watching 2-3 movies at the same time. We think it’s a mystery, but there is no mystery. Ultimately, the film is grounded in two psychiatric schools of thought – to love or not to love? While one school saw lobotomy (a barbaric process in which a portion of the brain is likened to a scrambled egg) as the logical progress forward, the other school found medication in combination with genuine care and talk therapy to be the answer to treatment and care.

The film then, is the story of patient care. Consider what is actually happening – a man, so traumatized and detached by horrors in his life that he has experienced and taken part in, constructs an alternate reality where he is only a victim or observer of the trauma. This is his defense mechanism against his experiences. His alternative reality is not so far fetched. It is how many psychotic disorders develop. Consider sexual trauma, violent trauma, or other types of trauma. Rather than live in the real world – one which is too painful to actually experience – we create an experience that we can control and cope with. This is a fantastically intricate yet automatic method of protecting ourselves from pain.

The star of the film is ultimately an elaborate treatment plan that involves role play on a huge scale. Every character is role playing in order to aid in this particular clients treatment. What we watch is how one doctor conceives of treatment – that if one lives in and is enabled by their “detachment” role, they may break into reality, the process of which takes time. This is why the flashbacks happen in the film – it is the protagonist’s memories being permitted to come to life by the protagonist himself. As the real memories come through, he has to allow himself to be exposed to who he truly is, and what truly happened.

The fault of the film is in the reality of it. No matter how loving and caring one might be, no one is going to put a patient at such risk as to let him wander off near a cliff by himself, or otherwise. While the protagonist is logical and thoughtful in weaving his web regarding the mystery in the film, at any point the memories coming back may have been too much that his detached reality could have caved in. That he lives in it for several days in such consistency and logic is also intriguing. And yet, like “Lars and the Real Girl,” the fact that everyone plays along with the main character shows what might happen if we accept an alternate reality as real for someone, even if it is false in our reality. Perhaps when we realize this serves a purpose for someone else, that acceptance can lead to breakthrough.

END Spoiler

Like “The Road,” I knew I was going to love “Shutter Island” within 5 minutes of viewing it. The opening shot of the ship moving through thickened fog and the faces of all the guards on the protagonist sets the tone early. Like the ship itself, the film has a lot of fog and texture before we really see what’s coming towards us. Big thumbs up.