[review] SHUTTER ISLAND (2010)

In 1967 Martin Scorsese's picture 'I Got First' (later release as Who's That Knocking at My Door) played the Chicago Film Festival. A young writer named Roger Ebert would immediately write, "'I Call First' ... a work that is absolutely genuine, artistically satisfying, and technically comparable to the best films being made anywhere," he would even dare to put epiphany to print , "I have no reservations in describing it as a great moment in American Movies."

More than forty years later Mr. Scorsese delivers his twenty-first feature film, 'Shutter Island'. This is an accomplished work of art that shows an unwavering strength of vision, the determination of an athletic aesthete, and an entirely uncommon passion for what he does. Mr. Scorsese's artistic tenacity has not only exceeded every other "great" American director from his own generation but he continues to operate with the same artistic and technical class of the best filmmakers working anywhere in the world today. How? His loving commitment to the art of motion pictures, perhaps even more than as his professional experience, allows for his perception to remain relevant.
A friend of mine recently made this astute comment "Most musicians today, and when I say most I mean most, don't sound or even look like they enjoy doing what they're doing." Maestro Scorsese loves what he does, and he does it for an audience that loves the cinema. He remains mindful of yesterdays audience, the audience of today, and the audience of tomorrow. Why was "Shutter Island" put off from being released in the fall along along with the other premium pictures? I like to think it's because this picture wouldn't have found it's full audience. This may not be the type of picture that would matter most to the academy, and that certainly isn't what matters most to Scorsese and his producers -- viewers matter. This picture does better by not competing with ambitions of other films and evading the feeding frenzy. 'Shutter Island' opened at the perfect time. The R rated thriller opened at number one in the box office, earning 40.2 million it's opening weekend.

'Shutter Island' stars Leonardo DiCaprio, as U.S. Marshal Teddy Daniels, Mark Ruffalo, as his partner Chick Aule, and Ben Kingsly, as the prison medical director. The picture starts kneading your mind from it's opening scene with the dense tone clusters of Polish composer Krzysztof Penderecki grafted over Scorsese's swooping and circumscribing shots. Teddy Daniels is fevered from the get go. He enters the film carrying the cuts, bruises, and white knuckled anxiety of a conflict pre-existing outside the frame. Apparently, Marshals Daniels and Ruffalo are on their way to Shutter Island, a remote and craggy island off Boston, the foundation of a prison for the criminally insane, to investigate the disappearance of a child murderer. It doesn't take long before we discover that something else is afoot and suddenly the story takes the shape of cries for reason against the gales of a torrential storm. The action runs the gauntlet through an awfully dark labyrinth that moves between collapsing passages in the mind and the rough-hewn chambers of a most wretched prison.
As I mentioned earlier, this picture begins by immediately commencing on your brain. As a mystery it calls upon your intelligence, but when the expertly crafted mania of this story slips beyond all mental facilities it becomes a full-out drill on the senses. At one point I was actually trying to mentally hold onto something, anything, for a piece of security - be it an horrendously ugly neck tie. But even that went up in flames. This is a picture that works fully from beginning to end without ever letting up on one's need to reason.
Like a good noir we never know more than what the 'Robert Mitchum' type investigator does. The protagonist is always a beat or three ahead of the delighted popcorn popper, allowing for the pleasure of being led by the singular badass to the final conclusion. When you've arrived, you've arrived after taking the fantastic ride together. In a 1964 one-on-one interview with director Fletcher Markle for the Canadian program "Telescope" Alfred Hitchcock described being a good film maker as being "like a good architect for roller coasters." Scorsese has created a very ingenious thrill ride wherein the big drop twists and corkscrews without ever really letting up to the forces of gravity. Teddy is warned, "You will never leave this island", and we remain strapped in with him.