Shutter Island

Recently I watched ‘Shutter Island’ for the third time. I was reluctant to see it again, thinking that I already knew everything it had to offer. But after watching it, I realised, I had forgotten how great it was.

Shutter Island starts working on the viewer the moment that ominous classical music, which gives us a sensation of doom, starts when US Marshal Teddy Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his new partner Chuck Aule (Mark Ruffalo) are in front of the isolated island. Scorsese stated that the main reference to Teddy Daniels was Dana Andrew’s character in Laura. The ferry scene where the scary island is looming in the gloom of the sea and slowly emerges out makes you prepared that something is going to happen. 

From the moment they step on the island, something feels off. I understand that it is a mental institution so it is going to be unusual, but not only that. The nurses and doctors also seem to hide something. Psychiatrist Dr. John Cawley and his associate Dr. Naehring, played with expertise by Ben Kingsley and Max von Sydow, are less than open about what is happening on the island. Even the pleasant deputy warden is not quite convincingly friendly. As Ebert says -He’s played by John Carroll Lynch, Marge’s husband in “Fargo,” so you can sense how nice he should be.

Marshal and his partner are traveling to the island to investigate the disappearance of Rachel Solando, a mental patient at the Ashecliffe Hospital for the criminally insane, who drowned her three children. But Solando’s lead psychiatrist Dr. Lester Sheehan left the island the morning the Marshalls came in. A patient on the island is missing, and her lead psychiatrist is on a leisure trip. I mean what is going on here? Everything just screams, “Go back!”. Teddy suspects that it is not what it appears to be. But when the storm hits, chaos reigns. Trees crash into buildings, there are free prisoners everywhere due to electrical outages, and the marshals are not even able to communicate with the mainland. The two marshals are as much prisoners as the patients.

On the other hand, our protagonist, Teddy has past traumas that give him vivid nightmares. He has flashbacks of his experiences as a US Army soldier during the liberation of Dachau and also has striking dreams of his wife, Dolores who was killed in a fire set by Andrew Laeddis who is believed to be a patient at this frightening institution. Leo is stunning in the movie and plays his character with heavy emotions. He has the tricky task of looking more rattled and confused the more he discovers.