Metaphorically, Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio’s fourth collaboration, Shutter Island, like the Denis Lehane novel it’s based on could come with a health warning: enough twists and turns to give you motion sickness.
It’s in that sea-sick state in 1954 that we meet DiCaprio as World War 2 veteran, now US Marshall Teddy Daniels, as he and new partner Chuck (Mark Ruffalo, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) travel by ferry to the Massachusetts island housing a facility for the criminally insane.
There, a dangerous patient has bafflingly escaped and the pair find answers less than forthcoming under the watchful eyes of the eerily calm Dr Cawley (Sexy Beast’s Ben Kingsley) and the quizzical Dr Naehring (Minority Report’s Max von Sydow).
As a lashing hurricane belts the island, freeing dangerous patients in its wake, Teddy’s suspicions of Nazi-style medical experimentation lead to an investigation that uncovers inner demons from his past. Dream and fantasy sequences recall hidden memories in the recesses of Teddy’s psyche among other things Teddy’s late wife Delores (Michelle Williams, Brokeback Mountain) and his role in liberating the Dachau concentration camp during WW2.
From here, Shutter Island’s labyrinthine plot goes into overdrive, delving into mind control, conspiracies, the trauma of war, moral order versus unhinged violence, cold war paranoia and the tug of war between more enlightened and barbaric psychiatric treatment. It’s dense, deeply layered material which at heart looks at the thin line between perception and reality.
At times the narrative lacks coherence but then anything’s possible in the realm of psychological terror (this is Scorsese’s first entrée into the genre since his 1991 remake of Cape Fear). While the many strange coincidences and the maze of mysteries (with red herrings and McGuffins thrown in for good measure) manipulate and stretch credibility they threaten to combust proceedings into an overwrought nightmare.
It’s DiCaprio’s all encompassing believability as the suitably shabby, brittle Teddy that overcomes such issues. It’s a masterful, captivating performance with DiCaprio’s troubled, weary eyes a gauge of Teddy’s deepening mental anguish. He’s aided by a stellar supporting cast including some scene stealing cameos from Little Children’s Jackie Earle Haley and indie queen Patricia Clarkson (Pieces of April).
Shutter Island is vividly atmospheric, from its haunting score and crisp sound design to the dark, dank corridors and windswept cliffs of jagged rock of its location settings (the clinical, gothic 1950’s psychiatric institution is given extra veracity with the use a real hospital). Attention to period detail is impressive and the cinematography superb.
The film takes place over just four days but its nightmarish path makes it feel much longer. It’s only after viewing it that the magnitude of what Lehane and the filmmakers are asking you to think can be realised. (A second viewing would tease out the many plot twists).
A mystery of impossible disappearance becomes a captivating exploration of existence, sanity and truth, a portrait of the effect of extreme emotional trauma, chilling in its intensity. Shutter Island’s unsettling ending holds much poignancy causing you to ponder its meaning well after the credits roll.
First published online at thevine.com.au, February 2010.
No comments:
Post a Comment