Tamara and I went to see The Shape Of Water today. It's a remarkable film, and more than merits the awards it has won. It's all of a piece, as well-crafted as classical Greek sculpture, and tells a marvelous story, a sort of fairytale for adults. I would rate it with the very best science fiction films, as good as Gattaca, and the visuals are simply stunning, scene by scene and in they way they tell the story. The soundtrack is wonderful as well, and the cast-- All I saw were the people they played.
And the story...! Simply remarkable. There was something familiar about it; not the plot or character, but something -- the tone, the heart of it: about halfway through, I realized it's a Theodore Sturgeon story. Not literally, but if you like Sturgeon's work, you'll like this film. It's a love story; it's a story about people doing the right thing, not always for good reasons, and about people who think they have good reasons for doing wrong. It's about recognizing the human in the alien and seeing the strangeness of everyday life.
If you haven't seen it, maybe you should.
BUILDING A 1:1 BALUN
4 years ago
4 comments:
Thanks. I'll check it out when it hits the cable channels (I don't go to theaters anymore. My TV and stereo system are good enough to avoid having to deal with people in the theaters).
It was not on my list due to the Oscar hype that I saw that primarily celebrated it's virtue in a political PC/SJW sense, not the actual story itself. I'm not much for the socialist realism school. It's good to hear it was good in spite of the praise it got from the usual suspects.
People who saw as a PC/SJW vehicle -- from whatever side of that set of tags, pro or con -- missed the damn point. They also weren't paying close attention to the story or, indeed, to the lives of the characters. If all you see is a set of handy broad-brush tags dancing, you're not going to be able to follow the story or understand any of the motivations behind the characters.
How does it compare to the classic "creature from the Black Lagoon" ?
Merle
I like most of the things that Guillermo Del Toro is involved with. (I even liked Pacific Rim, but then I love a good Kaijū movie).
While I haven't seen this film yet, I suspect you might also like El laberinto del fauno released in America as Pan's Labyrinth because the movie industry in America is insane. (Pan never appears in the movie.)
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