Social justice stereotypes wrapped into great visuals

Rating: 5/10 (14 March 2018)

Guillermo del Toro was always a master of adaptation of fairy tales to the big screen. In my opinion, his stronger side was always the visuals. Pan's Labyrinth - beautiful, Crimson Peak - gorgeous, Cronos - eerie yet still stylish. You can go on and on. Even when he was in just for the money, like in Pacific Rim, he was still competent at what he was doing. Everybody needs money to pursue their dreams.

I decided to check The Shape of Water mostly because of Oscars. I didn't expect much since Oscars is not really what it used to be anymore.

Everything regarding style and production was masterfully done. Great costume design, color correction, the feel of the 60s, nice creature effects, every scene had rich backgrounds, very living film overall. I was surprised with the work they've done with this budget, very professional.

However, the story wasn't on par with everything else. If you just watch it and don't dig deep it's fine, but if you look just a little into it - it loses all the charm. It felt less a fairy tale story and more like a complex of the most trendy political ideas. The formula is very simple - white male (sexist, racist, violent, power hungry member of the consumer society) oppresses everyone else. The main antagonist is just a hyperbolic mix of all the negative qualities and ideas. Everyone else is being oppressed, the mute, because she's a mute and a woman, the fishman, because he's different, the African-american woman, because of her race and because she's a woman, the old poster artist, because he's gay etc. The guy even treats his wife like a piece of meat, and he is of course a rapist. And the icing on the cake was feminism. The scene with the African-american janitor lady's husband. The portrayal of him as an absolutely worthless human being, who won't even stand from his TV chair to protect his wife, amazing. I also loved the high ranking military official portrayed as a dumb self-confident murderer.

A lot of effort is put in to make sure that you would feel guilty for just being straight white male. This was the message of the movie and it would've been a lesser evil if they would just approach it a little less biased. Just show real people instead of robots filled with stereotypes. Instead we get a perfect main heroine and her sidekicks against the evil of white male domination.