Weekly Film - The Shape Of Water

The Shape Of Water is a 2017 American fantasy drama directed by Guillermo del Toro and written by Vanessa Taylor. Set in Baltimore in 1962, the plot follows a mute custodian at a high security government lab who falls in love with a amphibian creature.

The shape of water deals with themes of voice, greed and power. Being set in the midst of military conflict with russia, The shape of water deals with the theme of war and also blame in the sense that everyone is being suspected of working for the russians and no one is safe from the scrutiny.

One of the most significant parts of the film is that the main protagonist, Elisa, is mute and cant speak. This is a great metaphor for women not having much power at the time and not having a 'voice'. This is made clear of at one point in the film where the general is questioning them and half way through stops himself and says ' Why am i asking the piss cleaners' and proceeds to talk about how little they would know about the topic.

Another important theme is the theme of betrayal. With the russian tension everyone was a suspect ,as i said earlier, and everyone is 'in it for themselves' apart from the main protagonists. Betrayal is prominent in the film as a couple of the characters don't actually seem what they are and often have interior motives.

The cinematography in the film is really nice but also very dark and at the same time very light. Alot of the scenes are at night and shows the golden era of America in the fact that there are very bright lights when she is walking through central cities. This also highlights the undercover and almost hidden lab as it is always dark and hidden by the shadows.

In the film most of the protagonists e.g.. Elisa, Giles and Zelda, are all outcasts of the time period. Elisa because she's mute, Giles because he's gay and Zelda because she's black. At the time period all of these people would've been heavily abused and seen as outcasts. Despite this one of the most impactful moments of the film is where Elisa is trying to persuade Giles about the monster. She says 'he sees me as normal', this single line of dialogue is the most hard hitting for me in the movie as midway through the movie the monster is called a god and the fact he sees everyone as equals makes a huge impact because he is almost and ideal person that people should be striving for. This also has some heavy religious imagery as it shows the monster as a god and show how he doesn't care about ethnicity, sexual preference or race and I think the director is trying to get across a point of acceptance through the monster.