The Shape of Water : A Movie that Reinstated Awe and Wonder

By -

The Shape Of Water


I watched the trailer of The Shape Of Water sometime in December last year. It was enchanting. The voice over started, “If I told you about a Princess without voice….” as the furniture floated about in the room full of water. I was hooked in just ten seconds.


 “Experience a connection beyond words.”


The Shape of Water is directed by Guillermo del Toro, the director of Pan’s Labyrinth- the movie that twisted the idea of fairy tales and yet ruled our imaginations for a good number of years. So yet another reason to anticipate the movie and the story it promises.


The movie seems to be a alternate rendition of The Beauty and The Beast. A fairy tale where the beast does not need to change into a handsome prince and there is still a happily ever after. 
Both Eliza and the aquatic creature don’t need words to communicate. Language is not a big necessity for connection. They communicate through hand gestures, smiles, and eyes. A daring love story that was unsettling for a while but very fairy-tale like.


“You'll never know just how much I miss youYou'll never know just how much I careAnd if I tried I still couldn't hide my love for you.You ought to know, for haven't I told you soA million or more times.You went away, and my heart went with you.I speak your name in my every prayer.If there is some other way to prove that I love you,I swear I don't know how.You'll never know if you don't know now.“ 
- From the SoundTrack of the movie


Water holds worlds unseen. Water is the path to alternate life. Water holds mystery. All symbolism are introduced at the very beginning before we meet the characters. The tables, chairs and the bed floating and the doors leading to hallway submerged in water- the scene itself is so enticing. Loved the imagination.


Eliza Esposito's life is simple. Monotonous routine of chores. Her world is small. A caring and loving father, Giles, who aspires to see his paintings sell. He is the narrator of the story too. A speaking, sensibly blabbering best friend, Zelda who makes sure Eliza keeps out of trouble. Eliza is mute. She talks through sign language, and yellow little subtitles for the audience when the characters don't translate her words.


“Time is but a river flowing from our past.” 

 Eliza tears the date slip from the calendar to flip it over for the quote of the day. Every day she would wake up to the sound of the alarm clock from deep slumber of her dreams, boil eggs for breakfast, bath, polish her footwear, pull off another date from the calendar and check the quote, sit on the bus and travel to the facility and clean. And she would clean, clean and clean. Same routine every day.


One day while cleaning a special unit of the facility she discovers a water creature. She thinks it to be a Merman. An Amphibian Man. She befriends him away from the eyes of the higher officials, offering him boiled eggs, communicating in sign language and bonding over music.


He sees her as she is. Without noticing how incomplete she is as a human.

“Life is but the shipwreck of our plans.”
The movies about the extraterrestrial beings do have a pattern- friendship and bonding with the alien, and saving the hapless creature from the villainous scientists who want to dissect him in their labs.  But this creature in The Shape Of Water is from the earth, The Amazon River, and the natives call him a god.
Humans see him as a surprisingly beautiful being, scientists consider him a means to explore the unknown, but our mute protagonist sees a lover in him. There is romantic alliance, which seemed strange at first, but the cinematic feat is not blown out of proportion. I found it difficult to digest personally, the love story of a human and an aquatic being. Slightly revolting too, initially. But then anything is possible in a fairy tale. And I threw logic to the wind and let the story take me to different worlds.
“Unable to perceive the shape of You, I find You all around me. Your presence fills my eyes with Your love, It humbles my heart, For You are everywhere.”

The Shape of Water reinstated the awe and wonder that we had as a child, an adult version though. The film is beautiful. It is dangerous too. It makes me both happy and sad. Yearning for another world may be.








Comments

Post a Comment

Queeristan by Parmesh Sahani

By -
Image
  Queeristan (Amazon Link) Thanks to Audible Free Trial I listened to this amazing non-fiction on LGBTQ inclusion in Indian workplaces. Author Parmesh Sahani identifies as gay Indian, working closely with Godrej higher management and employees for years to create an inclusive workplace, both legally and in spirit. This book is a result of those years of experience, research, collaboration with individuals from difference spectrum of the society and organizations who has successfully transitioned into a queer friendly one.   Indian history is inclusive. From the Khajuraho temple architectures, to Konark to the Rig Veda, there is existing proofs even 2000 years ago of Indian inclusiveness of queer. It’s the draconian British law that criminalised it, which was scraped in 2009, came into effect once again following a sad judgement in 2013 and eventually was scraped off for good in 2018. I am in awe of the lawyers who fought this legal battle- colleagues and partners – Arundhati Katju
9 comments

Popular posts from this blog

Empress Ki : A story of an epic scale

By -
Image
Empress Ki Poster (behance.net) Empress Ki is the most elaborate, gripping, and thrilling series I have watched this year. And at 51 episodes , it is the longest Korean drama series I have ever watched. Even though the number seems daunting and too much, it’s worth it all. If you like period dramas, you won’t want to give this one a miss. It was in 2016 that I first read about Empress Ki, the historical drama that had garnered much praise and accolades from the audience and critics alike. Most Korean dramas are just 16 or 20 episodes long. So 51 seemed never-ending to me then. It wasn’t until 2017 that I decided to at least try the first episode. And I was hooked. But owing to the various circumstances I didn’t continue watching it. It was just last month that I remembered this epic story and watched it to completion within just a few days. Believe it or not, midway through it, I was almost literally pulling my hair out, in anticipation of what would happen next. I wou
Read more

E[x]ploring Odia Literature Through 'Punyatoya'

By -
Image
Odia is my mother tongue but I had never really focussed on Odia novels, given that I love reading. Of late I realised that I should explore the culture and language of my native land, and see for myself whether it suits my reading sensibilities. I read “Jagyaseni” by Pratibha Ray a few years back, over a span of several months. It is a retelling of Mahabharata from Draupadi’s perspective, which brings about her inner turmoils, confusions, decisions, desires and dreams, really well. It was the first Odia novel I ever read. Three days back, I completed reading my second novel in Odia, coincidentally it is by the same author. “Punyatoya” - literally it means the river, or ‘as pure as the river’. It is also the name of a revered river in Indian mythology. The book has been translated into Hindi with the same title, with the tagline “the story of a village girl Meghi”. Other translated versions are in Marathi and Malayalam. The story follows a young girl named Barsha,
Read more

The Baztan Trilogy

By -
Image
The first movie 'The Invisible Guardian' begins with the killings of several teenage girls and elaborate staging of their bodies by the river in the damp valley of Elizondo. Amaia Salazar, our protagonist, returns there, her hometown, as the Chief Investigator for the case. She heads the homicide department. The serial killings seem aimed at young girls who don't uphold the traditional norms and have begun exploring their sexuality. Through the case, Amaia grapples with her own demons, her relationship issues and traumatic memories of abuse from her past. We get to know that her mother had abused her, being seemingly senile herself, and was then admitted to a facility. The setting of the damp valley where it rains all hours of the day, the cloudy scenery, the fog covered thick forest maintain a sinister vibe throughout the movie. It is an apt backdrop for a crime thriller, with supernatural undertones. The mythical beast  basajaun , the big hairy beast of the forest, seems
Read more

Reading Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami

By -
Image
Reading ‘Norwegian Wood’ by Haruki Murakami is a very revealing experience. I encounter my own thoughts, views, and somewhere somehow suppressed opinions, wishes and teenage dreams. The growth and the development in Naoko and Watanabe’s relation is very memorable, has a nostalgic essence to it. Naoko is Kizuki’s girlfriend, who is Watanabe’s best friend. They are just acquaintances, at first, meeting up in double dates, but with Kizuki’s suicide, they are devastated and broken with only each other to care for as an integral part of their adolescence vanished along with Kizuki. They grow close with time, as years pass by, taking long walks in the meadow, through the streets of Tokyo, riding together in the metro, and discussing everything under the sun except Kizuki’s sudden death. On Naoko’s birthday when Watanabe mentions him, she snaps, crying violently. She leaves the town without notice. The story turns sad and melancholic at this point as Watanabe misses Naoko terribly, w
Read more

Odisha's Handicrafts: A Picture Post

By -
Image
Papier Mache: Best Waste Paper & Cloth Recycle Product (Pinterest) Sandart in Puri Beach (WikiCommons) Intricate Stone Carvings in Konark (WikiCommons) PattaChitra- Palm Leaf etchings (WikiCommons) Coir Crafts (odialive.com) Applique works in Pipili, Odisha (Flickr) Silver Filigree from Silver City Cuttack (indiamart.com) Ikat- Handloom- Craft- Sarees (strandofsilk.com) Terracotta (odishasuntimes.com) Terracotta Elephants (communityodia.com) I am participating in the #AToZChallenge with #BlogchatterA2Z and I am sharing posts themed around Art for this entire month of April. Share and connect with me on social media. Twitter | Pinterest | Instagram  ************************************************************* If you like to read Magic Moments and the posts here, subscribe to the monthly newsletter below. Would love to have a dialogue, feedback and suggestions. Subscribe to our mailing list
Read more

A Gathering Of Friends By Ruskin Bond

By -
Image
a gathering of friends is a collection of 21 short stories. The twenty-one stories in the book are the greatest pieces of fiction written by Ruskin Bond. Chosen by the author himself, from a body of work built over fifty years (starting with his award winning first novel, ‘The Room on the Roof’, and ending with ‘Tales of Fosterganj’), this collection includes well-known masterpieces like ‘The Night Train at Deoli’, ‘The Woman on Platform 8’, ‘Rusty Plays Holi’, ‘Angry River’, ‘The Blue Umbrella’, ‘The Eyes Have It’, ‘Most Beautiful’, ‘Panther’s Moon’, as well as newer stories like ‘An Evening at the Savoy with H.H’ and ‘Dinner with Foster’. Taken together, the stories in A Gathering of Friends show why Ruskin Bond has long been regarded as one of the pillars of Indian Literature. Timeless tales Ruskin Bond's stories have the essence of the hills, the trains through the deodars, uninhibited exploration of childhood and other vagaries of life. They have suc
Read more

Yeh Meri Family : Summer of '98

By -
Image
I watched TVF's recently released dramedy 'Yeh Meri Family' after reading a tweet about it. Then when I was in the second episode a friend recommended it to me just the moment I was about to recommend the same to her. Just like telepathy. Then, I knew this adorable story of a 12-year-old Harshu and his family in The Summer of '98 was a very special one. Being a 90's kid, I could relate to each and every detail in the series. The siblings' fights were exactly similar down to the very argument on who had to bring the clothes from the terrace and who had to fill up the water bottles and put them in the fridge. How often as kids, we thought our parents are so uncool till that moment when we realized otherwise!  "Papa cool dikhte nahi, Papa cool hain." Planning with friends, being the obedient one when parents fight, and sneaking around the kitchen to find something to eat- this web series took me back to my childhood and relive it all.
Read more