Dreams (1990)

Dreams (1990)

Director: Akira Kurosawa, Ishiro Honda

Cast: Akira Terao, Martin Scorcese

When you are on your way to becoming a true Film Connoisseur, you simply have to see the works of certain directors who don’t just make movies for profit, they make films for the purest reasons, the love of the cinematic art form and to explore among other things, human nature. Legendary directors make their films because films can be honest and pure, they can be direct and undeniable. You know how the saying goes “A picture speaks louder than a thousand words”.  And so, here I am once again visiting Akira Kurosawa, one of the greatest directors who ever lived. I’m still catching up with his body of work to this day, but every time I do watch one of his films I am blown away by two things. Number one the beauty of the images, be they black and white or in color, and secondly I am blown away by how intimate his stories are. Kurosawa’s films might be about Samurai’s and temples and epic wars, but he takes his camera and whittles the story down to what really matters: human actions, human emotions, human nature.  

Going into Dreams it’s important to know that it’s an anthology film consisting of eight different stories which are all based on Akira Kurosawa’s own dreams. So this is a very personal film, with Kurosawa touching upon some very personal subject matter. Throughout the film, we have a character simple called ‘I’, who connects the short films. This character is a representation of Kurosawa himself, as he observes humanity. Basically, the film is Kurosawa’s observations on life and how he sees the world. It spans many areas of life, art, war, death, the afterlife, it’s all encompassing. Above all, what Kurosawa’s Dreams does is place a mirror against humanity, begging us to both analyze ourselves individually and as a collective as well.

For example, one of the shorts is about a nuclear power plant that blows up. The imagery of this short film is amazing because we see Mount Fuji being engulfed in wave after wave of fire and explosions. Now this story is epic in scale, but Kurosawa doesn’t focus on buildings falling and cars exploding the way that Roland Emmerich would, no, instead he focuses on a group of three people, at the shore, realizing the radioactive fallout is going to kill them and they have nowhere to go. Does life have meaning in their last few moments? Should you give up and commit suicide? Or do you enjoy your last moments of life? This is what I’m talking about! Real human emotions, important situations. The backdrop is epic, but the focus is intimate and personal, which is a characteristic of Kurosawa’s films. 

This was a film that Kurosawa was having a hard time getting made because it made revolutionary statements against nuclear energy. Producers didn’t want to produce a film that would criticize the government. So Kurosawa branched out to Steven Spielberg, who convinced Warner Brothers to distribute the film. Kurosawa had things to say about humanity and nothing was going to stop him from making his truthful film. How truthful is this film? Well, for example, on the story ‘Mount Fuji in Red’ Kurosawa basically calls the government ‘liars’ for calling Nuclear Power Plants “safe”. On the short film entitled ‘The Tunnel’, a retired military general encounters all of the soldiers who died under his command, placing the blame on him and his superiors for sending them to their deaths. And these are just two of the eight stories. The thing is that these shorts speak of undeniable truths, however harsh they might sound to whomever. But you know how things go in this world we live in, you say the truth, you get in trouble, which is the reason why I appreciate films that are brave and truthful like this one.

Aside from including beautiful, thought provoking insights on life, the film is also a beauty to look at. My favorite of the shorts has a painter visiting an art museum showcasing Van Gogh’s paintings. The artist looks at the paintings so much that he ends up going inside the paintings, walking through them, and actually meeting Van Gogh himself, who by the way is played by none other than Martin Scorcese himself! This is my favorite short film in Dreams because it talks about the creative/artistic process. Also because Kurosawa managed to successfully recreate some of Van Gogh’s paintings, its amazing. Bottom line is with Dreams you get a beautiful looking film that has a lot to say. It’s the kind of film that a director makes at the end of his career, you know, the kind that resumes everything the director has learned about life, the most important things, the themes that truly, really matter; the actions that have to be criticized; the experiences and emotions that need to be remembered and passed on from generation to generation.  Kind of like what Chaplin did with Limelight (1952) or Ridley Scott did with Prometheus (2012), films that are made by directors at the end of their career, which inevitably turn out more profound than their earlier films, because these directors have lived full lives and have so much more to say. So that’s what Dreams is all about. Kurosawa would go on to make two more films after Dreams: Rhapsody in August (1991) and Maadadayo (1993). With Dreams you get Kurosawa at the end of his career, at his most insightful, giving us his last opinion on how things are in the world. A beautiful, thought provoking film.

Rating: 5 out of 5

The King of Comedy (1983)

Title: The King of Comedy (1983)

Director: Martin Scorcese

Cast: Robert De Niro, Jerry Lewis, Sandra Bernhard

Review:

There are a couple of movies out there that are about desperate people looking to make it in the big time. They want to make it so bad that they are willing to go to the craziest lengths in order to achieve their goals. For example the film Airheads (1994) starring Adam Sandler, Brendan Frasier and Steve Buscemi (among a slew of other comedy greats) is a film about this rock group who wants to become famous so bad that they hijack a radio station in order to play their demo tape over the air. In many ways Airheads is the rock and roll version of the film I’ll be talking about today, Martin Scorcese’s The King of Comedy; a film about a pair of wannabe’s who suffer from celebrity worship. Basically, these two individuals (played by Robert De Niro and Sandra Bernhard) worship a comedian who’s the host a television variety show called The Jerry Langford Show. De Niro’s character Rupert Pupkin just wants his shot at doing his stand up comedy act on Jerry’s show, will he ever make it?  

Rupert waits for Jerry outside the television station, his plan is to harass Jerry about how much he worships him and about how much he wants to be like him. Pupkin is so obsessed with making it as the next ‘King of Comedy’ that one day, while the masses are being particularly savage outside the television station, Rupert takes the opportunity to slip into Jerry’s limousine with him in order to pitch his comedy act to Jerry. Jerry decides to give this desperate soul a chance, and listens to Ruperts plea for attention. Jerry gives him some advice about how to get started in the comedy world and then tells Rupert to call his production office, to set up some kind of a meeting. Of course, Jerry just wants to get this obviously crazy loon off his back when he tells him this, but little does Jerry know what a nasty chain of events he has just jumpstarted.

Normally, and specially in a Martin Scorcese picture Robert De Niro plays these ultra macho types, the epitome of a man. Sometimes, De Niro’s characters will border on being arrogant or chauvinist because of this. De Niro’s character in Scorcese’s New York, New York (1977) is a good example of this, on that film he plays Jimmy Doyle, the kind of man who doesn’t want a woman to usurp his place; the kind of man who tells a woman to “come here” and expects her to follow suit. And here’s where The King of Comedy is just a little different then your regular De Niro/ Scorcese collaboration; on this film De Niro plays a complete nerd; a guy who lives with his mother, practicing comedy routines in his basement. He wants to be a celebrity so bad, that he borders on insanity.  He has fake conversations with cardboard cut outs of his favorite celebrities, and so on. He takes things to annoying extremes. It thought it was so interesting seeing De Niro playing against type. This isn’t the De Niro we saw in Mean Streets (1973), Taxi Driver (1976) or Raging Bull (1980). On this one De Niro is a mama’s boy who still hasn’t found independence. Another interesting aspect of the film is that Jerry Lewis, the famous comedian who plays Jerry Langford also plays against type. Lewis was always known for playing wacky, absent minded characters, but on The King of Comedy he plays the opposite; a weathered actor who carries himself in a decidedly serious manner.

The film basically plays out like a celebrity’s worst nightmare, not unlike Rob Reiner’s excellent Stephen King adaptation Misery (1990), only without the horror. Actually, this is one of the few Scorcese comedies, but of course, this being Scorcese it’s not just any comedy, it’s a dark comedy. Same as the film he did after The King of Comedy, After Hours (1985), yet another Scorcese dark comedy I highly recommend! The King of Comedy explores the dark world of celebrity obsession, those psychos that chase a celebrity, invade their homes or call them on their private telephones. Basically, this movie is about a pair of stalkers. These are people that want to skip the normal way of doing things; they don’t want to start at the bottom and work their way up. No, they want to skip straight to the big time. I thought the film does well in pin pointing the fact that to get to the top, you have to start at the bottom, and work your way up. The thing about this movie and it’s probably the main reason why it tanked at the box office, is that its main character is completely unlikable. Rupert Pupkin is a guy who is blind to reality, he is so persistent with his obsession that he becomes annoying, therein lays the comedy in this film, but I guess not a lot of people saw it that way. Audiences came to expect mean and gritty films from Scorcese and with this one they got this dark comedy with an unlikable protagonist, I think this is part of the reason why the film bombed.

De Niro, Bernhard and Scorcese discussing a scene

Entertainment Tonight declared The King of Comedy “the flop of the year” on national television. But I say that no matter what its box office returns where like, this is not a bad film; in the least. Many of Scorcese’s films have tanked at the box office only to later be admired and revered, same has happened to Ridley Scott and Francis Ford Coppola with many of their own films. A lot of films simply fail to connect with their audiences, or are simply ahead of their time, as I suspect was the case with this one. In my book, this is yet another misunderstood and underrated Scorcese picture. Ask anyone about their favorite Scorcese film, and chances are this one isn’t going to pop up. But take it from me my friends, it is good. Yeah, it’s a different kind of collaboration between these two greats, but at the end of the day, I think that’s what makes this film unique, it’s not what you’d normally expect from them. In the film, Pumpkin says that he’d rather be “King for a day, then a schmuck your whole life” and in this way, long before reality television reared its ugly head, this film foreshadowed what reality television was going to be like; where people will do anything for those ever popular 15 minutes of fame.

Rating: 4 out of 5

After Hours (1985)

Title: After Hours (1985)

Director: Martin Scorcese

Cast: Griffin Dunne, Rosanna Arquette, Verna Bloom, Linda Fiorentino, Teri Garr, Catherine O’Hara, John Heard, Dick Miller, Bronson Pinchot, Cheech Marin, Tommy Chong

Review:

Every once in a while a director will take a project that could have otherwise turned out to be bland or formulaic and elevates it, makes it better then it has any right to be. I think this was the case with After Hours. You kind of get the feeling that had this comedy been under the command of a lesser director, it simply would not have been as good as it is. Had legendary American filmmaker Martin Scorcese not been behind the camera, it could have ended as just another romantic comedy, lost in the shuffle and forgotten in time. But in the hands of Scorcese, this dark comedy is a superior form of comedy film in my book and I might add, criminally underrated.

After Hours tells the story of Paul Hackett, a New York City computer programmer who’s fed up with his life. He’s got a boring job, doing the same thing over and over again; when he goes back home, it’s to watch the same boring channels on television and judging by Hackett’s one tone face, there’s nothing unique or interesting on it;  he surfs through the channels with a blank stare on his face. So after a while he decides to  go out and venture to the outside world, searching for human contact, searching for something other then the numbing loneliness he lives in. The streets he ventures to are the perilous streets of the big apple, circa mid-eighties, which means dark, dangerous and manic. He stops at a coffee shop to read his favorite novel and stumbles upon a beautiful girl whom he apparently has a couple of things in common with. They exchange phone numbers and part ways, but Paul's loneliness gets the better of him and so he ends up calling her up on that very same night! They meet again at her apartment and Paul seems to think he’s going to be getting lucky, for what is wrong with casual sex? A random night of passion? Absolutely nothing! Unfortunately for Hackett, Marcy ends up being a true wacko! He sees the signs and decides to abort mission, but as Hackett will soon find out, going back home is not going to be an easy task.  

Many things make After Hours a good film, not just the fact that Scorcese directed it, though that is the big bonus in my book. Actually a lot of good things came together to make this as special a film; for example, the cast is amazing! The film is mostly centered on Griffin Dunne’s character Paul Hackett, he plays the every man. A blue collar worker type that’s fed up, he wants human contact, he wants something more then just his own self to talk to at night. Unfortunately, the universe seems to be conspiring against him on this night, this is one of those movies where everything goes wrong for the main character. He runs out of money, gets mixed up in all sorts of trouble and meets the craziest people! True blue New York people who live jaded lives in a jaded city. To you or I these characters that Hackett meets through out the course of the evening might seem nuts, or too crazy for real life, but to a New Yorker, this film is merely an exaggeration of every day New York life. Every character is brought to life by a gifted actor. Terry Gar for example, whom I always remember as Inga from Mel Brook’s Young Frankenstein (1974), is hilarious on this one as a waitress who’s a lonely desperate woman, looking for the right man to snatch up and devour! Catherine O’Hara plays this psychotic woman who has her own Mister Softee Ice Cream truck, her character is hilariously jaded out of her mind.  I mean we even get freaking Cheech and Chong on this film! The cast is very well rounded out, it makes watching the film a pleasure.

But of course, the big draw here for me is that Scorcese directed the film. What I’ve always loved about Scorcese is how very New York he is. He is enamored with the city, same as Woody Allen is, can’t say I blame ‘em, the place can be rather magical, vibrant, alive. It is a beautiful city and a dark city; it can be the stuff of dreams or nightmares depending which corner you turn on. New York City's ambiguity is what  shines through so well in After Hours. You can meet a beautiful girl in a coffee shop in the middle of the night, but said girl can turn out to be a total head case. It’s these little details that the film has that make it such a New York film, the crazy taxi driver, the cold crazy people, the dark haunting city streets, the bums, the punks, the night clubs, the gay bars, the unexpectedly friendly people, the film effectively captures the dark beauty that was New York of the 80’s, I loved that about it, so my hats down to Scorcese for capturing New York City life so well, it’s something he’s gotten very good at through out his career. I mean, this is the director who made New York, New York (1977), Taxi Driver (1976), Raging Bull (1980) and Mean Streets (1973) all of which take place in the big apple. Scorcese is without a doubt a director that displays his love for the city that never sleeps; he’s the most ‘New York’ director of all. The fact that the entire film was shot in New York City streets and entirely at night is what gives After Hours its unique look.

But aside from that, the film has these amazing camera shots, which is really what let’s us know there’s a master filmmaker behind the cameras, it’s little details, like when we follow these keys that someone throws from a building, or when Hackett’s twenty dollar bill flies out the taxi cabs window and the camera follows it. My favorite shot is the one with which the film ends, the camera simply sweeps through an office building filled with desks and computers and telephones…loved that. This is the camera work and direction that brings After Hours up for me, it elevates the film. So as you can see my friends, many things make this one special. After Hours is without a doubt an extremely underrated Scorcese film! Same as with Scorcese’s Bringing Out the Dead (1999), this is a film from Scorcese’s repertoire that many seems to be missing out on, but should definitely be seeing. Scorcese made After Hours in order to regain his love for filmmaking, you see, before making After Hours Scorcese had been trying to get The Last Temptation of Christ (1988) going, but had an incredibly hard time making it happen, until finally he let it go. He ended up making it anyways a few years later, but at the time, he was incredibly frustrated at the fact that apparently The Last Temptation of Christ was not going to happen. So he went on and made After Hours, to regain his love for making movies. His love and passion for the medium shows through in the film, this is a master storyteller giving it his best to make us laugh and achieving it, in a very artful stylish way. This is a wonderfully dark comedy.

Highly recommend it if you want to see one of these films that’s very paranoid, and fast, the film moves at a frenetic pace. It’s the kind of film that takes places during the small hours of the night, in these seedy places that are open when most of humanity is sound asleep. It’s a film that shows us that the freaks most certainly come out at night. Which is probably why Hackett is always shown running from someone, which was a nice motif I picked up while watching the film; that image of Hackett just running,  running from the freaks, from the crazies, from scary life. Paul Hackett is a character that just wants to ‘get home’ which reminds me that in some ways, this is a dark version of the Wizard of Oz, with it’s main character trying to get away from all the craziness and back to the comfort and warmth of home. By the way, the films connection to The Wizard of Oz is alluded to at one point in the film. But aside from wanting to get home, Hackett just wants to live, which I think is an awesome message in the film. He wants more out of life, can’t say I blame him for going after it even if it means going through hell.

Rating: 5 out of 5 

  

Hugo (2011)

Title: Hugo (2011)

Director: Martin Scorcese

Cast: Ben Kingsley, Sacha Baron Cohen, Jude Law, Asa Butterfield, Chloe Grace Moretz, , Christopher Lee, Emily Mortimer

Review:

Georges Melies was a genius back in his day; the guy was not only an accomplished illusionist, he was also one of the first film directors to use special effects in films. He is the filmmaker responsible for such important films as The Impossible Voyage (1904) and A Trip to the Moon (1902), the short film in which men travel to the moon on a bullet like rocket, and land on the moons eye. His films where filled with wizards, mermaids and adventurers; he was one of the first filmmakers to fall in love with the childlike wonderment of illusion and magic. He is also the focus of Martin Scorcese’s latest masterpiece, Hugo. And yeah, that’s right I used the ‘m’ word which is a status I reserve for those movies that are works of art, films that I enjoyed on every level, films that really ‘get to me’. Hugo was made by an extremely experienced director fully in control of the filmmaking tools at his disposal, ladies and gentlemen I speak of course of the great Martin Scorcese; who like the best filmmakers of the world, continues making amazing films even through his old age, and thank the film gods for that! Hugo is a beautiful film!

Hugo tells the tale of one Hugo Cabret, an orphan who’s really had a difficult time in life. He lives behind the giant clocks on a train station in France. No one knows that it’s a child that gives maintenance to the clocks on the train station, but it's Hugo behind it. When he isnt fixing clocks, he's working on a mechanical toy called an ‘automaton’. This automaton was a toy that he inherited from his father, when he died. Unfortunately,  Hugo's dad  never really finished working on it, and so, he never got it to work properly. It can write words on paper, and so Hugo believes that if he finishes fixing it, that it will write him a message from his dead father. Will Hugo ever discover the automaton’s message?

As you can see, Hugo is a film about an orphan, living on his own in the world, trying to survive as best as he can. The premise of the film brings to mind similar films like Oliver (1968) and Annie (1982);  you know films about kids who’s parents have died and have to either be brought up by the government in an orphanage or live on the streets, eating whatever food they can steal; scurrying through the city, running away from authority figures. Hugo is also one of those films that is about film itself.; it focuses a lot of its running time on the life of French filmmaker Georges Melies. In this way, by exploring the life of Melies, Martin Scorcese takes the opportunity to explore the nature of films and why we love them so much. Hugo is a film that is about cinema and the whole creative process behind making films. It’s about how much fun is had making a movie and the joy of having others see, enjoy and remember your work. It’s about why we enjoy going to the movies, why it’s our great escape. Why films are the stuff that dreams are made of, which is why it brought to mind an Italian film called Cinema Paradiso (1988) a film about a little kid who works in a movie theater, and falls in love with films so much that he eventually becomes a famous director. He also befriends and older man, same as in Hugo. By the way I highly recommend Cinema Paradiso to all film lovers out there, if you haven’t seen it, do yourselves a favor!  

Hugo is a very layered film, it’s not simplistic. Aside from commenting on all the things mentioned, it is also a film that speaks about humanity and how we are each essential parts of a big machine, the world. And how we all serve a purpose in this world; all we need to do is discover what that purpose is. If we don’t, we remain broken, incomplete. It’s a film that instills hope in ones heart to achieve our goals, and become everything we always wanted to become. One awesome moment has Hugo looking directly at the automaton and saying that the robot is waiting “to do what he came to do”, in this way Scorcese urges us to do the same. I love films like Hugo; family films that don’t  treat you or the children watching it like idiots. The themes Hugo addresses are relevant and important, it does a good job of placing beautiful and important ideas out there in the world and in childrens minds. And that’s really the best thing a director can do, use his story telling abilities to spread positive, life changing ideas out there in the world through their films. Scorcese is a filmmaker that's had his time in this world, and the film has that weight of a filmmaker who knows about life and so it’s not a film with paper thin themes, this is a film with something to say, a film filled with ideas picked up through a life time of experiences. I mean, the whole film is about trying to fix a toy robot that looks like a man, and what we need to fix is his heart. Hugo needs to fix the internal machinery of the automaton and find the key that will get it to work properly. “It isn’t going to be easy” one character says, but it can be done! Hugo is a film filled with hope for humanity and the idea that man can improve and become something better, that we can change, that we can evolve.

At one moment in the film, Isabelle (the girl who befriends Hugo) takes him to a bookstore. When she sees that he is not as excited as she is to be there she asks him “Don’t you LIKE books?” In this way, Scorcese takes the opportunity to praise the greatness of books, and the value he has for them. I love this about the film because in today’s IPad and IPhone filled world, where people aren’t even holding real books in their hands anymore, I appreciated the fact that Hugo was about enjoying going into a book store or library and searching for that perfect book to read, possibly with a loved one before going to bed. The kids in this film have questions about something and together, they go into this giant library, looking at books with wonderment in their eyes. Kudos to Scorcese for putting these ideas across, in my opinion, the importance of the printed word should not be taken for granted and this movie does a good job of placing an emphasis on this.

The visuals are nothing short of amazing, every scene is jam packed with details and color. It’s one of those films where France looks magical and vivid! Some scenes reminded me of a Fellini film, with its buoyant streets filled with life, love, food and music. And speaking of the visuals, Scorcese really took advantage of 3-D on this one; this is one of those films best experienced on 3-D, this is in my opinion some of the best 3-D I’ve seen since Cameron’s Avatar (2009), there is some real depth to these images, at times you really feel as if you’re walking through all those giant gears. You’ll feel like Charlie Chaplin rolling through the machinery in Modern Times (1936).  This is a film that uses 3-D the way it's meant to be used. I’ve already seen Hugo twice in theaters because number one, I loved it and I felt the need to take in these beautiful visuals and moving story one more time, and two, because I wanted to share this film with someone I loved, which is the same you should do.

Rating: 5 out of  5

Shutter Island (2010)

Title: Shutter Island (2010)

Director: Martin Scorcese

Writer: Laeta Kalogridis, based on the novel by Dennis Lehane

Stars: Leonardo DiCaprio, Mark Ruffalo, Ben Kingsley, Max Von Sydow, Elias Koteas, Jackie Earle Haley, Emily Mortimer

Review:

Martin Scorcese is one of those directors who’s name is a household word. Scorcese is as much a star of his movies as his actors are. And this is not without merit for Scorcese is responsible for some of the best films ever made, including some of those fantastic films that were made during the 70s that still, to this day influence modern filmmakers. Films like Taxi Driver and Mean Streets. Both awesome films on their own right; both masterpieces. And both are only a small representation of what this great American filmmaker is capable of producing. His body of work is certainly an impressive one. And one that has never shown signs of diminishing in terms of quality of storytelling and filmmaking ability. In other words, Scorcese is a master. There’s no denying that. So, how did Shutter Island, his latest film, fare?

Scorcese, directing the hell out of Kingsley, DiCaprio and Ruffalo

Shutter Island is the story of one Teddy Daniels, federal marshal. He is visiting the incredibly mysterious Shutter Island, and island that is home to one of the most dangerous psychiatric wards in the world. A ward that houses the most criminally insane individuals on the planet, the ones that are deemed too dangerous to live in society. The ones that have committed the most heinous crimes. Teddy arrives to investigate the disappearance of one of the inmates. I mean, patients of the ward. It seems like she simply vanished from her cell! How did she disappear from her cell without a trace? How did she achieve this when her room was locked and her windows were barred up? Why did she leave without any shoes on? Where is she? Will she survive the fierce storm that’s forming outside? Will Teddy uncover the truth behind this ever evolving mystery?

And that’s a key word on this movie: mystery. It’s ever present, from the first frame of the film to the last. The whole film is drenched in atmosphere, like one of those old school horror movies where the storm never lets up. I personally love movies that do this because I really hate it when horror movies loose that spooky feeling. It makes you kind of wish they stretched it out for longer. But not with Shutter Island, with Shutter Island you get a constant spooky vibe, constant suspense, constant mystery, a constant ominous feeling. The psycho ward feels like one of those castles from the old horror movies, a castle at the end of the cliff. I tell you, that spooky feeling never lets up! The deeper the movie goes, the darker the mystery, the darker the film. The stronger the storm! If you love spooky old school horror movies, where the wind is howling all the time, and the storm looks like it’s never going to end, then Shutter Island is for you.

Thematically speaking though, I loved what this movie was trying to say. Filmmaking is a mirror of our society, which is an aspect of filmmaking that I love. I think its so interesting how we can communicate so much through films. I sometimes feel artists and filmmakers communicate with society in code, through their films. Saying important things that sometimes people don’t like to talk about, addressing themes and issues that need to be addressed and discussed. But sometimes filmmakers don’t like to be so obvious with what they are saying, so they’ll embellish their tales with complications, and drama. But at the core, you sometimes have to wonder while watching a film: what’s this filmmaker trying to communicate? What is he trying to say? Shutter Island is one of these movies. It’s not your typical spooky psychological thriller. Though it succeeds marvelously at being one, this movie is trying to communicate so much more then just a spooky scare.

At heart, Shutter Island is similar to Joel Schumacher’s Falling Down (1993). If you remember correctly, Schumacher’s Falling Down was about a guy (Michael Douglas in one of his finest roles ever) who is driven mad by the way things are set in society. He can’t take it anymore so he bolts and goes ballistic, lashing out against society. Shutter Island has that subversive vibe going for it. It criticizes the government for performing experiments on people, hideous experiments to see what makes people tick. This is one of those “us vs. them” movies, where every one acts just a little weird. Kind of like in Invasion of the Body Snatchers or The Wicker Man (1973). The kind of film where everyone is in on something, except our protagonist. You get the vibe from the very beginning that something is a little off on Shutter Island, and that everyone is acting just a little strange. Its one of those movies where “they” want to control and dominate you, and if you don’t play along, then you are going against the grain, and that cant be good for you. You have to either comply, play along, or be eradicated.

Mario Bava would be proud

In many ways, this film is kind of like a cautionary tale for people with a rebellious spirit, same as Falling Down was. Its trying to say, something might be going wrong, the government might be corrupt, and everything society holds true and certain is a lie, but you still gotta play ball or you are going down. But again, this is all embellished in the film. Which is probably why most people aren’t going to get it. This was probably the reason why after the film was over I heard some people saying the movie was crap. That’s the problem with today’s film going audience, they’ll go in droves to mindless crap like Transformers 2 (2009), but they’ll think that Shutter Island is a boring movie that has too many talky scenes. It doesn’t have that huge splash of an ending, with a lot of special effects.

And yeah, it’s true, this is a very cerebral film. It’s not a film about special effects, or grizzly deaths, or car explosions. This is a movie with a brain, with something to say. Proof of this films cerebral introspective nature is the films many nightmare/flashback sequences, which by the way I absolutley loved! Scorcese really went wild with the dreamsequences on this film, it gave the whole movie a very hallucinatory vibe that I really dug. And on top of that Shutter Island  has an excellent cast, and it was made by one of the most legendary filmmakers in the industry. I mean, as far as I’m concerned, Martin Scorcese has been on a roll and has never stopped ever since he started making movies. He has not given up like many directors have at his age. He continues making excellent films, with passion, drama and intrigue. That’s one thing this movie has a lot of, intrigue. By the way, the feeling of mystery in this movie is only augmented by the films amazing musical score. Martin Scorcese is a film director that has not forgotten the importance of music in a film! I thank the movie gods for that, especially in a movie of this kind. The music Scorcese chose for this film (composed of famous classical music tracks) kind of guided us through the roller coaster ride of emotions that both images and music conjure up. It’s as if the music was telling us how we should feel. I love that kind of score on a film! Very grand. Very classy. Just as grand and just as classy as the movie itself.

Rating: 5 out of 5