From time to time, we need movies that really put us and our brains through the wringer. That make us doubt our perceptions a little. And then surprise us.
Martin Scorsese has already gifted us with some gems over the course of his long career. Much of it delves into the gangster milieu, some of it reckons with the history of the USA. Cleverly written stories go hand in hand with raw, tangible characters. But few of his films bend our brains like today’s tip.
Shutter Island is probably Scorsese’s most surreal film. Isolated on the eponymous island, not only the inmates of a mental asylum for mentally disturbed criminals fall victim to absolute madness. The audience is also drawn into a spiral of confusion, false trails and abstruse experiences. You can currently indulge in this psycho-trip on Netflix
Shutter Island takes Leonardo DiCaprio to a prison that is as eerie as it is dangerous
Massachusetts, 1954: Edward “Teddy” Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his colleague Chuck Aule (Mark Ruffalo) don’t like coming to Shutter Island. This is where criminals who are mentally ill and therefore sometimes unpredictable and dangerous are kept. But the two investigators have to go to the remote island on business: a patient seems to have simply vanished into thin air.
Her disappearance is all the more mysterious because it is practically impossible to escape from the isolated island with its high cliffs and raging sea all around. The more time the two investigators spend in the asylum, the more suspicious they become of the methods used by the doctors here. And the more they sense the fear and desperation of the inmates.
When the weather changes and the return journey to the mainland is prevented, Teddy and Chuck suddenly find themselves stranded. So they continue to investigate the secrets of Shutter Island – and come across covered-up experiments and events that make their hair stand on end.
Shutter Island on Netflix is a psychological trip that will keep you on the edge of your seat until the very last second
Teddy soon finds out in Shutter Island that sometimes he can’t believe his eyes or his ears. An experience that we as the audience soon share with him. While this narrative trick was a torture for many in school due to dusty readings, Scorsese uses the principle of the unreliable narrator in an almost ingenious way in Shutter Island.
With its clever staging, the film regularly makes us doubt our own interpretations of what is happening on screen. It’s hard to believe that Scorsese even regrets Shutter Island today. Nothing here is an incontrovertible fact, our senses no longer trustworthy. If Shutter Island drives its inhabitants and visitors mad, the island does the same to us
So much human tragedy, so much pain and horror is mixed into a wonderfully eerie atmosphere that the movie mutates into an explosively atmospheric cocktail. And perhaps you will find the only true solution to the great mystery at the end. If you are also sure
