Shutter Island

Paramount

R4 DVD

Shutter Island is based on the novel of the same name by author Dennis Lehane, who is best known for his mysteries Mystic River and Gone Baby Gone. Shutter Island is one of those surprising gems you don’t get to see that often. I must admit that until now I have never liked Leonardo DiCaprio. I felt Titanic was overwrought and that Martin Scorsese is an interesting but somewhat uneven director. Shutter Island, however, is very different. This is a film which is never what it seems, moving between genres with what seems like a gleeful disrespect for cinematic categorization. It opens with what seems to be a film noir detective tale then moves into a conspiracy tale with what could even be seen as psychic/ghostly intrusions. It is only later in the film that it becomes an exploration of mental illness, depression, madness and loss.

It is a beautifully directed film and has some very powerful set-pieces. The flashbacks which occur to Daniels are powerful and moving, especially those connected to the concentration camps. While I have never thought much of DiCaprio, in this film he is superb; he plays Federal Marshal Teddy Daniels, the focus of the film and carries it off well.

The plot is ingenious and has lots of twists and turns, you will probably need to watch this film a number of times to catch the many layers of meaning throughout. It is also a film made with an economy of special effects, it does not show brain surgery, electro shock and other such atrocities one may expect to see in a Fifties mental institution.

Federal Marshal Teddy Daniels is a cop on a mission. He has taken the call to go to a remote psychiatric facility called Shutter Island which is located off the New England shore and only accessible by boat. Daniels has some baggage when it comes to the mentally ill, it seems a fire bug burnt down the block of units in which he lived with her wife and she was burnt to death. He believes that this dangerous criminal is also on Shutter Island and he is out for revenge.

He arrives with his new partner Chuck (Mark Ruffalo) to find a heavily guarded facility ruled over by a group of strange psychiatrists include Dr.Cawley (Ben Kingsley) and Dr. Naehring (Max von Sydow), to whom he takes an instant dislike due to his experiences with Germans during the war. He has been called to the Island to investigate the disappearance of Rachel Solando, who seems to have escaped from her cell through a barred window and locked door. Rachel is violent and dangerous; she has been on the Island for some years after drowning her three children in a lake and arranging them around the dinner table. She still believes she is at home and has created an elaborate fantasy to justify the incursion into her reality of people on the island. Without medication she turns violent.

The more Daniels investigates the less he knows. He finds his questions are answered with more questions and information is being withheld. He is not given access to the institutions medical records and one of the doctors, Solando’s primary psychiatrist, left on vacation the morning he arrived.

As Daniels explores the island looking for clues he starts to become unstuck. It begins with headaches, which then develop into migraines. He begins to have flashbacks of his experience in Germany during the war and has visions of his dead wife. Over time he comes to believe he has uncovered a major conspiracy, Shutter Island is the front for medical experiments by military intelligence. He also comes to believe that Dr. Cawley knows he is onto the real significance of the institution and has set a trap to silence him and that he will not escape the island alive. His behaviour becomes erratic and at times he is violent.

Of course, the truth of the story is far more complicated and since I do not want to destroy your enjoyment of the film I will not discuss the climax. In my mind it is certainly one of the more intriguing plots I have seen unfold on the screen and when you know the ending of the film and watch it again you will pick up hints throughout.

Shutter Island covers a myriad of themes from guilt and war crimes, to depression and madness. It is thought provoking, visually lush, intelligent and challenging.

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This review will appear in Volume 3 No. 4 of the digital and print edition of Synergy Magazine.

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