the shape of water

Recently read a damning article about the representation of disabled people as portrayed by the film by a deaf-blind writer, Elsa Sjunneson-Henry. It's hard-hitting because this only surfaced in my cognisance after reading the article of her interpretation and how awful it had made her feel. Another strand of ire is of the fact that this is a somewhat bestial relationship... which interestingly, I was apprehensive about going into the movie but came out forgetting it. If only because the ending was beautiful. Del Toro ended with a poem -- he had read it one day while filming, from a book by an Islamic poet, lettered to God. 

Deity is certainly a theme explored in the film. The amphibious man was apparently picked up from the oceans near where the Amazonians were, and they worshipped him as a god. Throughout the film, Strickland, the villain general, also makes several biblical references. In the end, we would see Strickland confessing before the amphibious man that he was indeed a god, after viciously taunting him, and later hunting to kill him. So for me, the poem:

Unable to perceive the shape of You,

I feel You all around me.

Your presence fills my eyes with Your love

And it humbles my heart

For You are everywhere.

was devastatingly beautiful because it reminded me of Christ's love. In the film, in one of the rawest and most emotional scene is Elisa's monologue through Giles (her neighbour): That the amphibious man should look at Elisa and not mind her "defect" because "When he looks at me, the way he looks at me... He does not know, what I lack... Or - how - I am incomplete. He sees me, for what I - am, as I am. He's happy - to see me. Every time. Every day. Now, I can either save him... or let him die."

I suppose this was the part that tore our friend, Elsa, because it meant that the amphibious man's lack of a voice was the reason why he didn't mind. He didn't know. (On the contrary, God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Knowing full well our nature, knowing full well that it was these very people whom He would go to the cross for. Now, how amazing is that love?)

The second theme is of language in relationships. Very early on in the movie, a rather out of place scintillating sex scene between Strickland and his wife is played, and Strickland saliently insists his need for silence during intercourse. It was a rough and domineering affair, and when juxtaposed against Elisa's and the amphibious man's time together, you understand what Del Toro was doing. In the film too, Elisa's way of communicating is specific. Even though she mostly signs to her closest friends Giles and her fellow cleaning lady friend, Zelda, at the workplace, it is Zelda who interprets for her every time Strickland talks to her. In her moving monologue however, Elisa asks her friend Giles to say out the words she was signing. And lastly, in the only scene where she speaks directly to Strickland, it is to swear at him. This claiming of a voice is so easily taken for granted by those of us who can speak for ourselves. Does Elisa feel that to get Giles to speak her words, she would be validated or so that he could claim it as his own? (The remaining lines of the monologue are, "And now I can either save him or let him die" Giles: "And I'm sorry but it is not even human." Elisa: "And if we do nothing... neither are we.") Then finally, in a scene out of nowhere, Elisa has a musical dream-like number where she is verbal, singing, confessing her affections through the line "You don't know how much I love you" for the amphibious man, while he's eating eggs across the table - nonchalantly. Is Elisa still in doubt, seeking validation of her feelings still through spoken word or can we merely presume that Elisa's so wondrously in love that she wanted to *sing*?

Can we also pay some attention to Elisa's friends? Giles, a homosexual pariah who has zero friends, and Zelda, a black cleaning lady. And the new addition: a monster. I can see now why Elsa is indignant. 

Finally, we come to the above screenstill... where amphibious man bails out of the house after chewing off a cat's head. The shot I wanted was just of him magnificently looking at the screen in an empty theatre, but i could only find this -- with Elisa approaching. Here, he resembles a newborn. Not knowing right from wrong, but already having done wrong anyhow -- by being himself a wild beast. So, the amphibious man is no god. In fact, as we see, he runs away from this sullied world, giving Elisa gills so that she too can escape to another world, where they would finally be considered "normal".

[A tiny rant against about the movie title's typeface? Sans serif?? So weird.]