Shutter Island

For some reason or other Wendy and I decided to go and see “The Girl With The Dragon Tatoo” last week. Nicely done, but I gather it’s a cut-down from a two part Swedish TV drama so some of the plot is irritatingly sacrificed, maybe you should just read the book, although Noomi Rapace who plays the Lisbeth Sander character is great. So this week we brave Scorsese’s “Shutter Island”. Scorsese’s latest is another long one and seems to have had mixed reviews, so you wonder, is it worth the time? Nevertheless you go along knowing that Marty is at least going to show you some interesting moments, even if it is flawed. The way Scorsese moves the camera or moves the performers within the frame is always elegant and inspiring to watch, his style is economical but somehow we are always aware that his eye is there – we are being shown things in a particular way for a reason.

Well let me tell you “Shutter” is certainly worth going to see and in years to come might be seen as one of Scorsese's best films. What he does with this story is subtle and clever and it’s only on coming out of the cinema after the final twist you begin to remember how his careful direction has lead you though the narrative’s many layers. The beginning is deliberately pulpy, by that I mean the camera angles he chooses, even the dialogue has echoes of a fifties comic book. Gradually the visual styles change and Scorsese uses different filmic devices (all beautifully executed) to draw us into the final denouement. Without wanting to spoil the ending, one often comes out of mainstream cinema wondering what you have carried away from the experience, in the case of Shutter Island I was reminded of something Jonathan Miller once said to me: “as scientists, we know more about deep space than how the human brain actually works”. Maybe we all have a little bit of “Patient 67” about us?