True Love of Film Making and Cinema

Rating: 9/10 (20 February 2018)

Guillermo del Toro's passion project, The Shape of Water, proves that creativity can exist in the simplest of concepts. Del Toro is no stranger to monsters and their interaction with humans, but this is his most intimate, personal portrait of a fictional creature in the real world. Perhaps more than any of his other films, this one feels the most grounded in reality in terms of setting. Sure, the monster isn't very real and the fantasy-like romance exists only for the dreamers who experience this film to relish in and enjoy. This film draws obvious inspiration from Creature from the Black Lagoon. It manages to feel like an homage to it more than a direct copy of it through its creativity and attention to detail that honors its influences instead of disrespecting them. Set during the Cold War in a government research facility in Baltimore, this film finds beauty in the characters and their actions where a less thought-out film would simply set this story in a beautiful city of bright skies and city lights.
Every component of this film works beautifully and effectively when considered on its own or in the context of the film as a whole. Take the cinematography for example. Dan Laustsen brilliantly lights the already aquatic-green set with even more eye-popping aquamarine lighting and tint to give the sense of visualizing things from a certain character's point of view. Even Alexandre Desplat's wonderfully majestic score sounds like it was composed by a pristine orchestra playing under water. The camera glides along the moist hallways and dripping streets as if it were floating through water. Del Toro's direction seamlessly combines all of these components to make a memorable film that belongs among the best of the year.
Having seen it three times already, I am better able to appreciate how it gets to the ending as opposed to only how it ends. Less knowledgeable cinema-goers may call the basic story "childish" or "simple" based only on certain plot points, but there is a lot more that is happening beneath the surface that is innovative and creative. The characters are all special in their own way and cast the perfect actors or actresses to play them. Each protagonist was silenced, oppressed, or frowned upon by society during the time period. This film makes a statement about America in the early 1960s that could be applied today. Michael Shannon's Strickland is the obvious villain of the film and bursts with electrifying intensity as he stands between the two protagonists' relationship. From the outside and to his family, he seems to be the epitome of the hard-working, bread-winning family man that came to represent American suburban culture at the time. While the villain appears to be the common man to society, the protagonists are all rejected from society in one way or another. Everyone from a black woman to a communist, Russian spy is given a voice and characterization that transcends their stereotypes. The monster isn't who you would think it is.
The Shape of Water may be a film more reliant on its production value and characterization than its story, but it certainly isn't lazy in its screenplay. The screenplay has layers, not only of characterization, but of symbolism and metaphors. It's little details like these that make the film so enjoyable and rewarding upon re-watch. Guillermo del Toro shows true passion and a particular love for film making that few film makers are able to intelligently convey in their films.
On a side note, I was watching Speed the other day and was enthralled by everything about it except for the ending. Don't you hate that feeling you get when you are loving a movie, but then the ending is disappointing and you wish it could be remade with your own ending? Guillermo del Toro knows that feeling.