predator are the others
t’s a fairy tale in turquoise blue and it’s about a dumb cleaning lady who falls in love with a dazzling water creature. The movie “The Shape of Water” is acted as a hot Oscar-Kanditat. He is unusual, tender and absolutely brilliant.
Nothing new in the cinema. So approximately the movie year 2017 could be summarized – at least if you base your judgment on the number of spectators. The ten most successful films were sequels or remakes. “Fuck Ju Göhte 3”, “Star Wars 8” – you know. “The Shape of Water” does not have to put up with this accusation and basically no one else. Guillermo del Toro’s latest film has created a masterpiece that knows genres, but is not included in them, that retells love and applies its own rules to its story.
“The Shape of Water” is a love story. In the Baltimore of the 1950s, a cleansing force and an amphibious Amazonian creature meet in a research center under extremely unfavorable conditions. The human or the beastman – the spectator already has to make out with himself – is trapped in a water tank. It is tortured by a research team for national security purposes. Predator are the others.
Maybe it’s the missing voice that Elisa is getting out of the crowd. When she plays music to the blue-and-green dazzling creature or stretches hard-boiled eggs on the edge of the pool, two outsiders can be observed in mutual recognition. Elijah’s movements could be described as awkward, but in this fairytale cosmos they seem like a dance. Sally Hawkins plays her quietly and not by this world, but just right and there in her own story.
Proximity before attraction
Now you probably want to know if it’s not weird, with the woman and the fishy fin man (Doug Jones). How far does her love go? How physical can she be? In fact, the relationship of the characters is never repugnant. Maybe because it does not connect attraction, but real closeness. “The Shape of Water” can also be read as an ode to true niceness. Not unimportant nice, but profound, tender and basically good for the good. Elisa and her water creatures work together and in their most awkward moments they are still a calming place in a noisy and quite horrible world.
“The Shape of Water” does not simply use ancient human-animal-eroticism. When Zeus goes hunting for women in the guise of a bull or a centaur turns his head on anyone, it has nothing to do with the sensuality, and above all, the legitimacy of the nature of the partnership in “The Shape of Water”. Elisa and the creature are not attracted by the curiosity of the other, they live what they have in common. An understanding look, a secret caress. Who would have thought that kindness can be so beautiful?