November 21, 2017 2 min to read

The Shape of Water

A very confusing visual masterpiece, that sticks with you after seeing it - especially the fish sex.

by Zach Saul

The Shape of Water is a really ambitious movie, and it made me imagine a writers room where everyone sitting around the roundtable just thought to themselves “screw it, lets try it”. If you know someone who’s seen the film and told you about it: yes, the rumors are true. It does contain a fish sex scene. But Del Torro spends the entire movie slowly and meticulously preparing you for it: and by the time you see it feels more surreal than unnerving. Whats disarming about The Shape of Water is how sweet it is, despite the gore, creepiness, and grandiose concepts. On the surface it’s a movie about government bureaucracy, beastiality, disability, and stagnancy. But at it’s core it’s an off-kilter love story: and that’s the portion that makes the movie special and worthy of the acclaim it’s received.

This is the sort of movie where the plot points and the meaning behind them are incredibly cryptic, and you kind of have to create your own thread as you watch. Here are some of the threads I spun while watching:

We absolutely refuse to admire people and concepts we don’t understand - truly curious people want to learn from things they find challenging - as opposed to about them. Dr Hofstettler (Micheal Stuhlbarg) is an under cover spy/scientist and spends much of the movie trying to convince his colleagues on both sides (in his words) “not to destroy something intricate and beautiful”. Early in the movie we can see him struggling with this and eventually decides to assist in the monster’s extraction.

There’s something to be said for deeply spiritual people experiencing extraordinary things as they pass through life. This is a movie that is littered with religious references from Sampson to the suggestion this creature is a God. I’m not suggesting that everyone who watches this movie should go out and become devout Christians, and neither is Del Toro. Spirituality and doubt are more complicated than that, and I think Eliza (Sally Hawkins) consistently suspends disbelief despite her disability. She’s a character who sustains a belief that something good might happen - even in the face of danger.

The Good: The Shape of Water is like an insanely rich dark chocolate cake, it fills you up quickly and dissecting just a fifteen minute segment would keep a film class busy for a double period. The sets are creepy, beautiful and genuinely inventive. For the first time in my life I have a genuine interest in visiting Baltimore. The score is also outstanding, and does a great job showing us the worldview of a mute laboratory janitor.

The Bad: As much as I loved this movie, I’m not sure I fully understood it. The Shape of Water feels to me like a movie you could interpret completely differently depending on what mood you were in that day, and maybee that’s the point. It ends with a very beautiful poem, I’ve been left thinking about since I saw it:

Unable to perceive the shape of You, I find You all around me. Your presence fills my eyes with Your love, It humbles my heart, For You are everywhere.