DOWN (Dining Out With Nerds) report: Shutter Island

Recently, DOWN met for dinner at Acapulco’s on Route 9, tasty! One of our discussions concluded that every movie is better with Batman: Avatar and Batman, Batman Invictus, Did You Hear About the Morgans and Batman?, Sherlock Holmes and Batman.

We went to see Shutter Island (not to be confused with Batman Island). Shutter Island was directed by Martin Scorsese and shows an expert’s hand throughout. It opens with classical music from the 1800s, played very loudly for a movie, helping to set an ominous tone. Soon the rough boat ride turns into a violent storm ripping through the woods. And throughout we see things swirling through the air, papers, or snowflakes, or ashes. Reality is just slightly off... and the simple question, “What is reality?”, becomes more and more difficult to answer.

The story starts with a simple locked-room mystery and grows ever more complex. Is this flashback real? Is that person telling the truth? How did this child die? Everything makes sense, the clues all come together... and then they stop fitting each other, and maybe things weren’t as they seemed, and ultimately the locked room is not even real.

I liked the acting. Leonardo DiCaprio did a mostly good job, Mark Ruffalo as his assistant was quietly effective. Max von Sydow... the name, the face, the reputation made him a bit over the top, but Ben Kingsley rescued that side of the story. The cinematography is very good. A well-made movie all around.

This is not a horror movie in the usual sense (good, because I don’t like them). It does not have large amounts of gore, or terror-stricken people chased by evil. And yet it gradually builds a different kind of horror. What is reality? You see it all around you... but actually, you only think you see it. How can you know that you’re seeing it correctly? How can you know?