The Shape Of Water

The Shape of Water: A Romantic and Thrilling Fairy Tale

The Shape of Water is a romantic, thrilling, and magical movie to the core with a fantastical and sensual fairy tale. The films play by all the rules with moral overtones. “Shape of Water” took home the Golden Lion since echoes the legendary predecessor known as “Beauty and the Beast,” with its capability of simultaneously presenting a beautiful imaginary world as well as making it heartbreakingly believable (Ordoña 2017, p.1). The story is about the romance between an amphibian man and a mute woman. The criteria for evaluating a good movie involves aspects such as the separation of the fantasy and real world, quality of characters, unique features, and genres, and the plot. The Shape of Water film has undoubtedly met the criteria of a fascinating and interesting movie. Additionally, the use of color is also a unique aspect that makes the film popular.

The Blurring of Fantasy and Reality

In the film, the separation between fantasy and reality does not exist. The human heroine Elisa finds herself attracted to the Amphibian man who is mind-warping. The secret of Del Toros is that he believes in both fantasy and reality with the same magnitude. Several actors including Octavia Spencer, Richard Jenkins, and Michael Shannon also share the same belief. Real humanity comes first in the movie, and it is not a pure spectacle. The shape of water is earnest, human, and tender about everything it attempts to do. Humanity is what makes romance in the film feel so intense as the happiness of pure love is untouched by snark (Miller 2017, p.1).

Tackling Weighty Issues through Fantasy

The shape of Water tends to address weighty issues in a fantastical plot. Despite the rattle of Khrushchev and Kennedy in the background, the movie focuses more on the specific cultural climate. The shape of Water touches on relationship power dynamics, fantasies of advertising, and segregation. Furthermore, Giles is portrayed as a gay years before Stonewall, and he is the first creature to demonstrate romance in the film. This feature makes the movie an exploration of outcasts. Besides, the movie has an important message for scientists, artists, and dreamers of the world as it suggests that people are more likely to do the right thing than those in power. The shape of Water is a grown-up movie with danger, sex, and violence (Miller 2017, p.1).

Superb Acting and Artistic Blend of Genres

The film also features the top actors in the world including Michael Shannon, Richard Jenkins, and Octavia Spencer, who make the most of their characters. Richard Jenkins appears to be anguished and funny. Hawkins seems to carry every spectacle with joyously unabashed desire and tender emotional transparency. The superb work of these actors along with the crucial roles their characters assume makes the film a great story. Shannon gives the movie a relish bullish instance, demonstrating the rhetoric of a government interested in killing what it does not recognize.

The Ravishing Artistry of “The Shape of Water”

Del Toro uses his love of art to blend genres, from gothic melodrama to science fiction to horror. The Shape of Water movie offers a ravishing and spilling artistry. Guillermo Del Toro leverages his film with the settings of the 1960s and musicals of the 1940s as well as Cinemascope biblical epics. These styles create playful humor and fantasy that makes the story more interesting to follow. All the cultural asides and social insights and the shifting from one genre to another do not make the film feel rough but more enjoyable and fascinating (Ordoña 2017, p.1).

Captivating Underwater World and Wordless Emotional Connection

The amphibian is not the unique feature in the Shape of Water, but both the land and underwater features look good. The ability to light and coordinate colors creates a virtual symphony constituting of an almost infinite range of greenish hues, makes the film extraordinary. Besides, Elisa and the creature do not speak the same language, but the gift and passion of the wordless emotional connection make the story more interesting and fun. The cinematographer presents a calm, wet mood with windows streaming with raindrops and the general feeling of submersion into the underwater world (Olson, 2017).

Mixing of Popular Elements and Significant Themes

Furthermore, the most interesting fact about the Shape of Water is the way Del Toro echoes his personal interests and combines popular elements from a variety of humble genres such as musicals, film noir, cold war spy dramas, and creature features. Additionally, the plot elements involving sexual and racial differences permit the film to demonstrate how society treats strangers. Concerning his personal interests, Guillermo del Toro admitted loving monsters since his childhood. He claims that monsters represent a trait in humans, the trait of feeling unaccepted and out of place. When someone looks keenly at the monster, they can notice beauty and rightness of it. Thus, our mistakes or insecurities might be the qualities that make humans beautiful.

A Critique on Society and the Importance of Human Dignity

“The Shape of Water” repeatedly demonstrates the demonizing of strangers and the heartlessness denying living things their dignity. Any film that condemns immorality in the society is educative and worth watching. The Shape of Water has focused on the lonely Stonewall gay, voicelessness of Elisa, and the brutal treatment of the monster. Moreover, the film also targeted on the contemporary life events, especially when the African American couple were denied from sitting at the counter.

The Symbolic Importance of Color

Color plays a vital role in creating atmosphere and tone despite being the most ignored aspect of most media. Unlike most films, “The Shape of Water” uses mostly teals and green for various reasons. First, the colors have been used to create a strange and unfamiliar environment. The green colors bring murky feelings of the underwater world. Guillermo del Toro and his production team have isolated the environment from the real world to the outside world. Besides, the color green has a symbolic effect, and it is meant to represent progress and the future. Del Toro changed the initial color of the movie to green indicating progress, and he also shows the audience key insights into the characters. Thus, the characters who embrace progress are linked with shades of green (Olson, 2017).

In Conclusion

A good artist does not only work to please the audience but also himself like Guillermo del Toro. Del Toro has a passionate and enthusiastic mind. In the Shape of Water, some elements work beautifully although others do not work at all. The film has gone to the extent of pointing out the similarities between fairy tales and the real world. The unique features in the movies make it look like a dream. “The Shape of Water” is a fairy tale and a love story which also has something deeper. The film is a story about progress in the period of the Civil Rights Movement told through the color green.

Bibliography

Miller J. (2017). The Delightful Design Details in Guillermo del Toro’s The Shape of Water https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2017/12/the-shape-of-water-production-design

Ordoña M. (2017). The ‘other than’ characters that give Guillermo del Toro’s ‘The Shape of Water’ its heart and power http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/la-ca-mn-shape-of-water-cast-20171130-htmlstory.html

Olson M. (2017). Is Guillermo Del Toro’s ’The Shape Of Water’ Any Good? Here’s What The Reviews Say http://digg.com/2017/the-shape-of-water-review-is-it-good-guillermo-del-toro