Traum und Trauma

Rating: 9/10 (16 December 2011)

U.S. Marshal Edward Daniels and his partner Chuck Aule travel to the (fictitious) Shutter Island in Boston Harbour, which houses a hospital for the criminally insane. They are investigating the disappearance of one of the patients, Rachel Solando, who has been confined in the hospital after drowning her children.
As the film progresses, however, we begin to suspect that Daniels may have other motives for visiting the island, motives connected to his troubled past. In a series of flashbacks we learn that Daniels' wife Dolores died in a fire two years earlier. We also learn that Andrew Laeddis, the arsonist responsible for starting the fire which killed her, is also incarcerated on Shutter Island. Is his real motive for seeking this assignment, therefore, to seek revenge against Laeddis? Or is it, as he claims, to investigate claims that the US government is using the hospital to conduct illegal psychiatric warfare experiments? The death of his wife is not the only dark secret in Daniels' past. We also learn about his experiences in World War II, where he was one of the American troops who liberated the Dachau concentration camp. He is also tormented by guilt about his part in the "Dachau massacre", when American soldiers killed a number of the German guards.
One reviewer wrote that "aafter four decades, Martin Scorsese has earned the right to deliver a simple treatment of a simple theme with flair." I agree with him about the flair, but cannot agree with him about the film's simplicity, either in its theme or in its treatment. This is a very complex film indeed, and not only in terms of its plot, which I won't set out in any greater detail, as I don't want to give away the ending. The film deals with several interrelated themes, namely the relationship between reality and illusion, that between sanity and madness, and that between crime and law enforcement. Can Daniels trust anyone, including his partner Chuck or Dr Cawley, the head of the institution? Can he even trust his own memories, or is he suffering from hallucinations? Is he really who he claims to be? Is he really who he believes himself to be? At one point, one character points out the similarity between the word "trauma" and "Traum", the German for "dream". Etymologically there is no connection between the words- "trauma" is derived from the Greek for "wound"- yet one feels that there should be, as a mental trauma and a dream are two different types of illusion.
The influences on the film are also complex, and go much deeper than the standard modern thriller. An obvious influence is the film noir of the forties and fifties, the period during which the film is set. Another influence is the work of Alfred Hitchcock, who throughout his career, and especially in films like "Spellbound" and "Psycho", was fascinated by psychology and psychiatry. A third influence is the horror film; the plot can be seen as the modern equivalent of an Edgar Allan Poe story. (As in some of Poe's works, word-games and anagrams play an important role). Visually, too, the film, with its autumnal feel, mist-shrouded woods and graveyards, owes something to the horror tradition, although a distinctive visual style is also a hallmark of many neo-noir films. Some visual elements- a cave, a lighthouse- take on a symbolic importance of their own.
I never really liked Leonardo DiCaprio in his teen idol phase in the nineties, but after "Catch Me if You Can", "The Aviator" (also directed by Scorsese) and "Revolutionary Road", "Shutter Island" confirms that he has become a fine actor and one of Hollywood's leading talents, especially as the mentally tormented Daniels, unsure of his own identity, must have been a particularly demanding role to play, as demanding as Howard Hughes in "The Aviator" and perhaps more so than the roles he took in the other two films mentioned. He receives good support here from Michelle Williams as Dolores (seen in flashbacks) and Ben Kingsley as the smooth and outwardly humane Cawley, who may be hiding guilty secrets of his own.
As I stated, I won't give away the ending of the film, but I can say that it involves a startling twist when Daniels is confronted with new information which completely overturns everything we have previously been led to believe. This revelation seems to make perfect sense of all that has gone before, and it significantly takes place in the lighthouse, a structure whose very purpose is to lighten the darkness, so it can be seen in symbolic terms as an enlightenment for both Daniels and the audience. Or can it? Even when it seems that the truth has been made clear, there are troubling hints that this might not in fact be the case. What if Daniels has in fact been the victim of a massive and cruel deception? (To judge by the message boards on here, there are people who have interpreted the film in two quite different ways). This ambiguity, which in some films would have been a weakness, is here a strength, a good example of a film which actually becomes deeper and more profound because its meaning cannot be pinned down precisely.
I was surprised that the film was not nominated for any Oscars, although part of the reason may have been the fact that its opening date was shifted, for financial reasons, from late 2009 to early 2010, thus making it ineligible for the 2010 awards. Despite this neglect by the Academy, however, "Shutter Island" confirms my view that Martin Scorsese is one of the finest directors working today. 9/10