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"Shutter Island" - movie review


“If I were to sink my teeth into your eye right now, would you be able to stop me before I blinded you?” Dicaprio responds stately “Give it a try”

Four years after “The Departed” , the master comes up with “Shutter Island” . Continuing with his favourite man Dicaprio whom he has indulged in the last 3 occasions before now, master director Martin Scorsese, one of the few men who is capable of enthralling his audiences at times of inconsequential moments of stasis in a movie, delivers again.

Not a single frame of the movie was wasted in “The Departed”, Scorsese was uncompromising in the previous one. He, with his impenetrable genius, pulled our nerves taut and relished in the obstruct sound of discomfort produced by the taut string like nerves in “The Departed”. What can you expect after such a movie?

“Shutter Island” begins with Dicaprio visiting the island. Background score is reminiscent of Black Sabbath’s “Iron Man”. Only this one sounds even more sinister, like two metallic objects sliding over one another in an underground bunker where a giant war machine, something very secretive, is being propelled, but where to?

The aerial panoramic shot with the Jeep approaching the entrance and the background score that seems to end but only prolongs the anxiety (like “voices of the dead” from “kreator”), and never ceases to release you ; The slow motion shot with an old lady signalling Dicaprio to keep his mouth shut, and a nocturnal background score- Scorsese at his best.

Psychotic patients, ones who cannot be treated elsewhere are admitted into Shutter Island. Movie espouses anger, bitter memories, danger, secrets, violence, deception….but above all, it scoops out something old, an archaic feeling. The steamer’s noise as if the water it is on is metallic, the ship whistle and sharp corrosive and piercing background score scoops out something atavistic- a feeling of distress.

Dicaprio is fed the island food, pills and cigarettes. They try to frame him for insanity. His past trauma, wife’s death, a perfect alibi. Movie makes you nervous. Although, the story is slightly predictable, Scorsese’s take on it is sort of oldish. The settings- the general atmosphere of the movie is that of the eighties.

It is odd that the movie should end with the startling revelation that Dicaprio has been in the asylum for over two years and that he withdraws into the schizophrenic word of his, in order to cope with his wife’s murder. It’s a thoroughly enjoyable movie, but quite different from what Scorsese has delivered so far. I am not disappointed that the new movie is not one of his trademark plots, the Good Fellas, Taxi Driver, Departed, Aviator…I like the new movie, an unconventional Scorsese. Was Departed the end of Scorsese as we knew it? if yes, then the end was his magnum opus. And, the new Scorsese is just as good, but not comparable to the old one.

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Comments

rajarshi samanta said…
dude spoiler aa gaya... revealation hata. rest is really good. after reading your take on the director everyone will try to follow him.
March 23, 2010 at 9:34 PM
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