No Reason to Close the Shutter

By Peter Tran, staff writer

Coming off of his Oscar-winner The Departed (2006), world-renown director Martin Scorsese returns with his most recent film Shutter Island (2010).  The film stars Leonardo DiCaprio in his fourth collaboration with the famed director as Teddy Daniels, a duly appointed Federal Marshal assigned to the craggy Shutter Island to find a dangerous escaped patient of the resident mental hospital, Ashecliffe, home for the “criminally insane”.

Shutter Island marks the second time the director has tried his hand in the horror/thriller genre since his remake of Cape Fear (1991).  The outcome?  A well-crafted psychological thriller that showcases (almost blatantly) Scorsese\’s knowledge of the cinematic medium. But the film does not stand up to Marty\’s previous masterpieces.

No, Shutter Island struggles in keeping a cohesive balance between its narrative and emotional dynamic.  Scorsese had the same problems with his Oscar-winner The Departed, which had a taut narrative structure, but fell short in the ethos department.  In the case of Shutter Island, it is vice versa.  The film works on an emotional level, where the elements of the plot add to mood rather than story.

The real flaw of the film is perhaps its pacing and near cop-out “what-a-twist!” ending that would spin M. Night Shyamalan\’s head.  However, one has to wonder how else someone like Scorsese could adapt a film from a novel that was intended to recall the standard hardboiled dime novels of the early 20^th Century. The film is destined to be “B-movie” quality.

However, there are redeeming factors to the film like its elaborate set pieces by Dante Ferretti, who accomplishes in creating the Kafka-esque mise-en-scene that recalls Orson Welles\’ The Stranger (1962) and also the soundtrack of the film, which is comprised of contemporary works of classical music composers except for one certain pivotal piano piece by Gustav Mahler.  Another great addition to the film is Sir Ben Kingsley\’s supporting role of Dr. Cawley, who plays his role with the sophistication of the archetypal Hitchcockian villain, but yet, is able to add a layer of humanity to his role, upstaging the starring likes of Leonardo DiCaprio and Mark Ruffalo and even the highly-touted cameo of the legendary Max von Sydow, famous for his collaborations with the late and great Ingmar Bergman.

Many have complained that the film is advertised as a horror film, but comes off as a thriller. Sorry to disappoint, but that\’s what Shutter Island is, a bloody good thriller; that\’s not to say there isn\’t a level of horror underlying it structurally.  The horror is there.  The audience is meant to feel it with DiCaprio\’s Teddy Daniels as he delves deeper and deeper into the labyrinthine mystery of Ashecliffe.  For those that disappointed by the lack of bloodshed,  a film\’s worth and greatness shouldn\’t be defined by how pretty it is or how much blood is spilled (ahem, James Cameron and Quentin Tarantino), but rather how the audience feels after having seen it.  If Shutter Island is meant to confuse and befuddle viewers as it does its main protagonist, then by all means it succeeds in doing so.

The messy, misplaced pulpiness of Shutter Island is redeemed and galvanized by Scorsese\’s direction.  Despite how it looks or sounds, structurally and stylistically, Shutter Island is through and through, a Scorsese film.  The film is associated with regular Scorseseian themes of guilt, identity, and even an inclusion of Freud\’s Madonna-whore complex; which is common in the great director\’s films.  The editing is done by lifelong collaborator Thelma Schoonmaker complete with her patented jump cuts and swish pans.  The soundtrack is compiled of handpicked songs that the director felt would add a certain lyricism to the film.

That being said, Shutter Island is a mere warm-up that showcases Scorsese\’s love of film and may perhaps only appeal to the most diehard of film buffs, succeeding in showing that the director certainly has a lot more fight in him and reel-rust is something that he will not have to worry about in the mere future.

Verdict: 7.5/10