Shutter Island (2010)

"The Nazis used the Jews, the Soviets used prisoners in their own gulags, and here in America we tested patients on Shutter Island."

Shutter Island, the newest offering by acclaimed director Martin Scorsese, is a methodical journey into the underbelly of psychology, paranoia and insanity in the early 1950s. Every scene, ever moment in this film is deliberate and calculated. I'm sure many who see this film will mistake that carefulness with simple boredom and slowness. That is unfortunate. This is not a happy movie. It is a movie that is a part of the film noir genre reminiscent of the time in which it takes place, when detectives chain-smoked and drank, and it was just a part of the job. It's a dark film played in shadows and moonlight. It's unlike anything Scorsese has ever done, and he has proven his dynamism yet again. 



Martin Scorsese has never really been defined by the stories he tells but this one is worth a description, sans spoilers. The movie opens up on a boat. U.S. Marshall Teddy Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his new partner Marshall Chuck Aule (Mark Ruffalo) are on their way to a federal institution for the criminally insane. This institution called Ashecliffe, is located on Shutter Island, a former Civil War military fort. It's 1954 which means that Daniels and his partner are decked out in film noir essentials: fedoras, trench-coats, and a lit cigarette smoldering between their lips.

They've been assigned a case involving an escaped prisoner: a woman who murdered her three children. According to the chief medical director of the institution (Ben Kingsley), it seems she had simply "evaporated through the walls." A little detective work shows that, of course, things are not as they seem. For film noir, they never are. Shutter Island is no different. The story, like much of the rest of the film, is told in layers. Daniels discovers hidden conspiracies, while at the same time Daniels himself holds his own secrets, for instance, the fact that Daniels had done independent research on Shutter Island and its inhabitants even before the case of the missing murderer was sent to the U.S. Marshall's Office. It doesn't take long for the audience to realize that nobody in this movie can be trusted. So many secrets, so much deception. In an ironic touch, the only really straightforward character in the whole movie is a patient housed in Ward C, the ward with the highest security. 

I won't ruin the climactic last 45 minutes of the movie, which isn't spectacular, but it didn't have to be. It was satisfying, minus the last five or so minutes. Now I haven't seen every Scorsese film. I've seen the first, and now, his most recent, with several in between. With that in mind, I can't think of an ending to one of his movies that is anywhere near as ambiguous as this one. That's definitely not to say it's a bad ending. It's not, it's just not what I expected from Scorsese, which, I wouldn't doubt, might very well have been his intention.

The ending might not be classic Scorsese, but the rest of the film is. Shutter Island is simply Martin Scorsese doing film noir. The formula is there, all the puzzle pieces fit together. In the film noir genre, Shutter Island is a decent addition, nothing spectacular. What makes it so utterly Scorsese, and brilliant? It's the spaces in between the puzzle pieces that we see the brilliance of Scorsese. The flashes that interrupt the scenes, both of light, as well as photos and memories, glimpses and glances. This is where we see the director at work. We also see him in every scene in that we never see a scene where the camera itself isn't moving. Even in the long straight shots of a patient being interviewed: take a look at the corner of the screen and you'll notice even then, the camera is moving in. They say a fixed shot with no camera movement makes the audience observers, objective and judging, while a moving camera, even a subtly moving camera makes the audience into participants, subjective and collaborating. Maybe that's why this film engrossed me so much.

The pacing was pitch perfect. Never did I wonder what time it was, or how much was left. Never did I think that the story needed to speed up or slow down. If watching Shutter Island wasn't necessarily a comfortable experience (it is a suspenseful movie, you will jump), then it was the right experience the most apt experience for the story it told. 


The film calls for great acting, and that is just what it got. DiCaprio and Ruffalo are cast perfectly as the jaded and flawed U.S. Marshall, while Kingsley alongside film veteran Max Von Sydow are also perfectly placed as the infinitely suspicious institution administrators. However, I believe the best cast decision by the director was to employ Ted Levine as the sadistic Warden of the institution. The short amount of screen time Levine has only increases the mystery and creepiness of his character.

I said earlier that Scorsese has never been defined by the stories he works with. That's because he is defined by the ways in which he tells the stories. Shutter Island
proves this. There is little to link this movie to Scorsese's other films, and yet, it is so completely Scorsese.

I'd like to end this review with the last lines of the movie, which, I believe, sum up nicely the philosophy that undergirds this film:

Is it better to live as a monster or die as a good man?


8/10