29) Shutter Island

Shutter Island (2010)

Director: Martin Scorsese

Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Mark Ruffalo, Ben Kingsley, Max Von Sydow, Michelle Williams, Emily Mortimer, Patricia Clarkson, Jackie Earl Haley, Ted Levine

I'm a massive Martin Scorsese fan (there you go, biases declared up front). I think he is without doubt the greatest filmmaker of his generation, and among the greatest filmmakers of all time. So, of course, I have been hanging out to for Shutter Island to come out for some time. I had a few spare hours after a meeting at Macquarie Uni before I was due at Turramurra so I thought I'd sneak in a screening.

In 1954, U.S. Marshall Teddy Daniels (DiCaprio) and his partner Detective Chuck Aule (Ruffalo) are sent to Shutter Island, a remote island which houses an asylum for the criminally insane overseen by Dr. Cawley (Ben Kingsley), to investigate the disappearance of one of the patients. However, Daniels has his own motives for being assigned to this case. He has heard disturbing rumours about the nature of the experiments being performed on the island and wants to find the evidence which will enable him to expose them. But when Aule suggests to him that maybe Dr. Cawley and his team are aware of his motives, and the whole investigation is a front to get him into their hands, the aim of the game becomes escape.

Shutter Island is the latest project in an increasingly fruitful collaboration between Scorsese and DiCaprio which has now garnered four films (they also worked together on Gangs of New York, The Aviator and The Departed). Scorsese has a history of choosing to work with the same leading man on a number of films. His most famous director/actor collaboration is, of course, with Robert De Niro, with whom he has made eight films (Mean Streets, Taxi Driver, New York New York, Raging Bull, The King of Comedy, Cape Fear, Goodfellas and Casino) but earlier in his career he has also had a fruitful working relationship with Harvey Keitel with whom he made five films (Who's That Knocking at My Door?, Mean Streets, Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore, Taxi Driver, The Last Temptation of Christ). DiCaprio, though, has definitely taken on the role of Scorsese's chosen leading man now, with Leo attached to play the lead in one of Scorsese's upcoming projects, The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt.

DiCaprio is very good, really capturing the determination, anger and confusion of his character, and he is well supported by rest of the cast. Ben Kingsley, sorry, that should be Sir Ben Kingsley, is also very good, giving his best performance since Don Logan in Sexy Beast. That is not saying a lot though, as for a knighted actor he does an awful lot of rubbish (Exhibit A: BloodRayne, Exhibit B: The Love Guru).

Scorsese has obviously had fun making this film, getting to play with a number of genres which are not all that common in his oeuvre. The 1954 setting allows him to play with elements of film noir, with DiCaprio and Ruffalo both presented as hard-boiled type detectives in the Bogart mould. It is also his first venture into the horror/thriller genre since his remake of Cape Fear in the late 1980s. Scorsese uses the creepy, gothic asylum setting to great effect,with the film being littered with references and images from classic horror films (for example, the slow walk down the corridor of cages as arms reach out trying to grab the protagonist, a classic scene from Bedlam).

Shutter Island has a really great twist ending, up there with The Usual Suspects and The Sixth Sense in terms of unpredictability, but what makes the twist ending work is that it is only one of a number of twists that take place throughout the course of the film. The narrative turns in on itself on a number of occasions, leaving the viewer constantly uncertain about what is actually happening on this mysterious island, but nonetheless enthralled.

I get the feeling Event Cinemas don't quite know how Shutter Island is going to fare. On the one hand, they are giving it the best part of ten screenings a day, much like any major release, but on the other hand before the film started I had trailers for two foreign films, the latest film from Amelie director Jean-Pierre Jeunet called Micmacs and the Swedish film The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. It suggests that they think it isn't a typically mainstream audience who are watching Shutter Island. I can't remember the last time I saw a preview for a foreign film before a comic book movie or a Judd Apatow or Will Ferrell comedy. I just thought it was interesting.

I can only assume that it came out too late to be considered for this years award season, but in that case you can pencil it in as an early contender for the 2011 awards. A fantastic, enthralling thriller. A must see, as generally are most Scorsese films.