Review of The Shape of Water (2017) by Sambad — 24 Jan 2018

Pure propaganda can never be considered art. And it's very difficult to discern this from anything else. The 'characters' are one dimensional at best, and the supposed theme of the film takes a complete backseat to the neo-liberal propaganda the film crams into it's 2 hour running time with all the subtlety of a dead seal in a maternity ward.

Suspicion sets in just at looking at the glut of sycophantic and gushing reviews from once respected publications like The Guardian, who now seem to specialise in pro-war, anti-family radical feminist indoctrination. This one could forgive, if the film was even remotely competent or well made, which it isn't. Guillermo Del Toro is a hugely overrated director anyway, Pan's Labyrinth seeming to be a one-off fluke of a good film. But this execrable and charmless mess is his lowest moment.

Let's take the characters. The 'star' is a deaf woman (played with twee sanctimonious abandon by Sally Hawkins) who cleans a government facility with a black woman (played likeably by Octavia Spencer) who's near every line is about how her no-good husband is bone idle and she has to do everything. These are the first hints of propaganda. Every white man in this film is depicted negatively, except for two, the reasons for these being, one is homosexual, and the other is Russian, but going against his Soviet paymasters. Before going any further, assurances need to be made to the reader that this review is not written by a Trump supporter or alt right activist. But neither is it written by a neo-liberal Soros supporter and thought police advocater. Both the Republican and Democrat party are rotten to the core, but the mainstream media bias and trumpeting of a completely fabricated Russiagate narrative, as well as pro-regime change and deceptively divisive identity politics, make propaganda films like this so difficult to digest. The sympathetic Russian of course dies, he is Russian after all. I'm not 'spoilering' here, everything that happens in this film is as derivative and predictable as the latest known wolf 'Islamist' false flag attack. The biggest bile however is reserved for a character played by the usually good actor Michael Shannon. He is here just a walking epitome of evil, white, straight, 'toxic' family man (by the way, aren't phrases like 'toxic masculinity', and 'smash the patriarchy' genuine hate speech? Are women beyond 'toxicity'? If so, why are 50% of cases of child abuse perpetrated by women? And how come sociopathic mass murderers like Hillary Clinton are held up as virtuous paragons?). With every scene, this guy somehow gets more and more evil, making Skeletor seem more nuanced and subtle. He has a phallic baton he carries around. He doesn't listen to his wonderful wife and covers her mouth when they have sex. Every other line he drops a new racist bombshell, including 'you people' (this script, such originality, such bravery!). I can't begin to think about covering the whole of this embodiment of white male wickedness here, as like the rest of the film, it's relentless. Oh yeah, he believes in God too, so of course this is retrograde and unacceptable, especially to people who believe in nothing deeper than the identity politics that Buzzfeed (a fake alternative news site owned by NBC) tells them to base their lives on. Possibly the most unintentionally hilarious part of the film occurs when the gay character played by Richard Jenkins, comes on to an 'up till now' friendly barman, who suddenly recoils and then goes over and tells a black couple walking into the diner that their kind isn't welcome. Complete character shift due to not wanting to accept advances from an old man. It's hard to imagine actual adults came up with any of this stuff, one imagines it was more likely written by coked up blue haired middle class teenagers who scream 'misogynist' at anyone who uses the term 'he'.

I haven't even touched on the 'story' of a captured amphibian man that the deaf character falls in love with, but this is because it counts for around 7 minutes of the film. Watch Creature From the Black Lagoon instead, who's monster suit this film rips off, badly. The dozens of moronic critics who gave this film 100% have described it as strange (it is if your sole diet of media and literature consists of Simon Cowell and JK Rowling) and warm. This film has no warmth, heart or soul, because the characters are cardboard stereotypes, and the most innovative idea is that everything is 'green' (which actually makes the film look as revolting as it feels). Some films contain elements of state propaganda, or advertising, and can still be deemed with artistic merit. But this is just one long, tedious exercise in social engineering. Shame on everyone involved. You want actual 'social justice'? Watch the badly rated Pirates of Somalia instead. You want anti-Trumpism even? Watch Machete. This puddle of vomit doesn't even make for good hate-watching.