Hidden Details in The Shape of Water
If you are a moviefan and pay close attention to the Oscar Awards, you might remember the movie“The Shape of Water.” The movie won four Oscars. The audience widely acceptedit, and critics loved it. Sure the movie was beautifully written and crafted.
If you are studying films or have a keen interest in directionsand cinematography, The Shape of Water could be the best case study. So if youare looking for any such fun and fantastic piece of art, we will explore themovie in this article. Although the film has a fundamental storyline yet, ithas many small nuances that you might have missed. Let’s find those hiddensparkles in the masterpiece.
The Shape of Water is an American romantic fantasy drama thatwas released in 2017. The film is directed by Guillermo del Toro and written byToro and Vanessa Taylor. The cast was as amazing as the technical team, as theprotagonist Sally Hawkins amazingly played her part. And the rest of the actorsMichael Shannon, Richard Jenkins, Doug Jones, Michael Stuhlbarg and OctaviaSpencer lend appreciable support.
The story revolves around the mute cleaner, who works at agovernment laboratory, Elisa.
She later falls in love with a captured humanoid amphibiancreature. It is set in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1962, and shooting took place inHamilton, Ontario, and Canada between August and November. The movie is amasterpiece with stunning visualization and a compelling story. Del Toro’sfantastic imagination made the unusual tale alive. The love story between ahuman and a creature is a very new idea to portrait. And the fantasticallycaptured scenes added more sugar to it. But chances are you haven’t recognizedall the details of the craft. So here we are looking into the film even deeper.
TheCreature
Doug Jones played the character of the creature. And heplayed it very innocently and spectacularly. When we saw the creature in TheShape of Water, it instantly reminded us of the creature from Black Lagoon. DelToro is a horror film lover, and you can say it from his movies. In the filmtoo, Strickland, played by Michael Shannon, mentioned that he found thecreature somewhere in South America, which is where the creature from the BlackLagoon is from.
RedClothing of Elisa
Sally Hawkins beautifully portrayed the protagonist of themovie, Elisa. Initially, in the film, she is a very kind, shy, timid,child-like, reserved, and vulnerable kind of woman in her 30s. Elisa has anapartment and a job, although she was quite comfortable with herself, but notsatisfied with her life. Elisa was leading a routine life. Every day sheinvolved herself in the same activities. She has a sense of imagination andwonder. Elisa is dreaming of a different experience.
As the story unfolded, we see her opening up and alive andeventually becoming a person of action. She was ready to break the rules tofeed the creature and save him; she even violates government law. She is allfiery and robust. And this evolution mirrored in her clothing. As the filmproceeds, we see Elisa in more red and bright clothing, which indicates she isbecoming bolder.
GreenColor
If you remember, the color of the creature is green, and DelToro played with it very well. In many instances, he used the color to create aconnection with the creature. It is most notable that green color is also thecolor of the creature’s healing power, and he tried to tie other characterswith him using the color. If you try to remember Giles’ refrigerator (played byRichard Jenkins), it is filled with green jello. Giles seeks ideas for hisadvertisement sketch that features the Jellos. And later, he tries to impressthe worker by ordering key lime. As the story goes on, Giles helps the creatureand saves him from Strickland and the police.
On the other hand, Strickland was buying a new car. He strictlyopposes the green color car, saying how he hates the green color, which mirrorsthat he also hates the creature.
WasElisa Human or an Amphibian?
The ending of the movie is debatable. Del Toro very smartly leftthe story unexplained, and hence it could have many explanations. One simplerand basic one is Elisa is dead, it is only a dream sequence or hallucination ofthe creature that she gets alive.
Another could be that the creature might give her the gills withhis healing power, and then these two will happily live after
Or there could be another explanation that could be adopted fromElisa’s past in the story. Earlier in the film, we learn that Elisa is anorphan and found as a child on the river bank. And when people see her, she hasthe scars on her throat. Those might not be scars, but gills that she neverused and hence remained inactive. Then in the intimate scene with the creature,Elisa is unexpectedly comfortable underwater. She was also convenientlycommunicating with the humanoid creature in sign language, which might indicatethat the creature adapts sign languages, and Elisa might not mute, she doesn’thave a human vocal cord. In the climax scene, when she is shot and dead, thecreature takes her underwater. It activates her inactive gills, allowing her tobreathe underwater.
David Root is a self-professedsecurity expert; he has been making the people aware of the security threats.His passion is to write about Cyber security, cryptography, malware, socialengineering, internet and new media. He writes for Office security products at Office.com/setup.
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