Review of The Shape of Water (2017) by Carolina L — 21 Feb 2018

A POETIC PORTRAIT OF LOVE.

Under the signature of the acclaimed Mexican director, Guillermo del Toro, The Shape of Water introduces us to a universe set in Baltimore (United States), during the Cold War period. With a unique aesthetic and under a green light filter, we witness a narrative that faithfully portrays the human species and its mechanisms of marginalization, where aspects such as belonging and loneliness, love and death are combined in a fantastic fable.

At the beginning of the film, the director invites us to enter to the private life of Elisa Esposito, a young woman who lives in a small apartment above a movie theater, to which life is solitary and routine. Every day she makes the same trip by train to her work; a government laboratory designed to investigate and develop tools to combat the war. There she spends her working day accompanied by Zelda, an African-American woman who shares her marital problems while cleaning the laboratory facilities.

During her free time, she shares lots of sweet pie with Giles, a frustrated illustrator who does not find recognition with his works, and is constantly questioned about his sexual orientation.

However, one day Elisa's reality seems to break down, and little by little she finds herself involved in a special relationship with a captive being that means a danger (or an advantage) for the group of scientists.

Where she begins to recognize herself in him, and he in her, as beings capable of achieving a unique and special communication, devoid of speech but enriched by movement and music. Because at the end of the day, both are social phenomena, locked in and forced to stay out of a society that excludes them because of their uniqueness and uses them to the extent of their functionality.

This is how Richard Strickland, the antagonistic character is forced to kill the amphibian, hastening Elisa to draw up a rescue plan, which will have the help of a Russian spy scientist, and that will lead to the coexistence of both on the floor of her apartment, bringing a host of inconveniences that will further narrow their relationship, moving the link to the more carnal aspects of relationships.

Finally, we must not forget that it is not accidental that the director has included the presence of a cinema, so close to our protagonist, who, along with the stories told there, lives in a dream world, where everything is possible, mainly extraordinary love.