I have always had a love affair with the Academy Awards but at the end of 2010 I realized how few of the Best Picture winners I’d actually seen. So I made it a goal to see all [then] 83 winners and write my thoughts about them along the way. (I even re-watched the ones I'd already seen so I could write a fresh post.)

That was the initial inspiration behind this blog... I wanted to document my thoughts as well as start a potential conversation or at least ask some thought-provoking questions. Why did it win? Should another movie have won instead? Has it become a beloved classic or do many of you not even recognize the title? For each film, I post the original movie poster, a brief synopsis, the films it was up against, my favorite scene(s), and any lessons I learned.

I have since completed the challenge and have seen all of the Academy's Best Picture winners. (For my collective thoughts at the end of the challenge, including lists of my favorites and least favorites, check out this post.) I keep this blog up-to-date by coming back each year to post my thoughts on the recent winner. I still invite you, my friends and guests, to comment along with me. Do you agree/disagree?

And the Oscar goes to…

Tuesday, August 21, 2018

The Shape of Water, 2017

Rated R

I started to watch this year’s Best Picture winner on board my flight to Europe this summer, thinking it was the perfect time to relax and jot down some of my thoughts. I guess I totally forgot that I was traveling with my four children and that I wouldn’t have one minute of peace or silence since my two year old would be in my face the whole time. I also noticed twenty minutes in that something was blurred out and I then remembered it saying that the film had been “modified and edited for content” so I turned it off. If I couldn’t watch the “real” version, I couldn't give an honest opinion.
I was able to sit down a couple of months later, and I have to say, I did not fall in love with this movie, nor with the aquatic creature that our main character does. The Director/Writer Guillermo Del Toro says this is a “fairytale for troubled times”. Overall, I found it rather ridiculous and sometimes laughably so. But, for tradition’s sake, I’ll go through with the plot line and my thoughts on it all…

The narrator introduces the main character, Elisa, and describes her as a princess, letting us know off the bat how we should feel for her and this fairytale film. Elisa cannot speak, but can hear and use sign language, so she seems to get along just fine. She even cares for her next door neighbor who appears to be one of her two friends. The other is Zelda, and the two of them work as night-time cleaning ladies at an aeronautical research institute. The setting is early 1960’s Baltimore, in the middle of the Russian space/science race. A “highly sensitive specimen” gets delivered to the institute (Lord knows why exactly), and Elisa befriends it, bringing it her favorite food, hard-boiled eggs, and playing music for it on a record player. Though wild, the amphibious creature (who looks a whole lot like the Creature from the Black Lagoon) learns she is a gentle soul, unlike the fairytale villain, Strickland, who uses an electric cattle prod when he doesn’t behave as expected.

Elisa decides, with the help of her two friends, to bust Fish-Man out of his watery cage and release him when the canals are at their fullest, on a specific date in October. He spends a good deal of time in her bathtub waiting for his release date. (Meanwhile, drama goes down between a Russian spy/scientist and Strickland who’s in deep water, no pun intended, for letting the specimen escape.) While it is clear Elisa has sincere feelings for Fish-Man and his well-being, I think it is too far-fetched of an idea to believe she actually falls in love with him. But she does; she feels connected to him like no other, and they share a love scene in her flooded bathroom. Then we have to learn about a few of the details as she signs them to Zelda. TMI, thanks.

ENDING SPOILER: In typical fairytale fashion, the monstrous villain is destroyed and the happy couple is reunited in love and live happily ever after… in water.

Del Toro is quite the visionary though, I’ll give him that. He wanted people to see this film as “realistic historical fiction” and NOT as fantasy, or sci-fi, bless his heart. His film definitely had a well thought out look. Almost everything in the film appears to be wet or relates to water… whether it’s actually raining, or there’s a massive leak, or the main character is mopping the floor of the institute. Also, the color palette for the whole movie seems to have settled on blues and greens, aquatic in tone. Add to that the music and camera work, both of which sound/seem fluid in nature, and it’s a wonder I didn’t get seasick. The camera’s focus almost floats from scene to scene rather effortlessly, and the accompanying music sweeps you along melodically, not punctuated at all.

There were three or four scenes that contained nudity, most of which I thought were unnecessary. There was also offensive language- they seemed to want to cover all bases so there were inappropriate comments made to or about women, blacks, homosexuals, and the disabled.

I went ahead and watched the special features on my rented DVD which had a few interviews of the cast and crew. Ironically, they each exuded more heart-felt emotion describing the film than when they actually made it. Regardless, I still didn’t believe them when they said this is “the ultimate love story”. And all I felt was bad for Sally Hawkins (Elisa) who said that for us to believe they were falling in love, it had “to be real and right”…. agreed; and it was not.  And then she lost me for good when she tried to convince us that “love can literally break down walls”. There aren’t enough eye-rolling emojis in the world to go after that.

This year’s broadcast had the lowest viewing audience in history which could be due to a number of reasons: the disinterest from the lack of more popular blockbusters on the ballot, the ever-increasing run-time of the show year after year, and/or even the politicization of Hollywood and cultural movements like #MeToo and Time’s Up. “The Shape of Water” had a whopping thirteen nominations and won four awards, including Best Director, Best Original Score, and Best Production Design (those three didn’t surprise me based on what I mentioned above). This drama/fantasy/romance film was up against “Darkest Hour”, “Call Me by Your Name”, “Ladybird”, “Dunkirk”, “The Post”, “Get Out”, “Phantom Thread”, and the oddest titled one, “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri”. Most critics predicted that last one to win BP. 



FAVORITE SCENES:

“Favorite” meaning this scene is memorable because it made me laugh out loud and roll my eyes at the same time. There is a black and white daydream sequence where Elisa starts professing her love for Fish-Man through song and dance. It looks like it came straight from the ending of the Best Picture winner of 2011, “The Artist”. Compare….

 

I have to admit that the ending suited this fairytale well. No matter how harebrained the storyline is, I root for love.



LESSONS LEARNED:


Empathy is an honorable character trait and/or complicated skill to possess and/or cultivate. No matter how it is properly defined, a person who is empathetic is automatically more trusting and relatable. Empathy allows for more intimacy, tearing down barriers like facades. 


Love can grow in the oddest of places. And who am I to question its validity? Just a critic. 

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