In Defense Of
Inter-Species Love-“The Shape Of Water”(2017)-A Film Review
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DVD Review
By Seth Garth
The Shape of Water,
starring Sally Hawkins, Doug Jones, 2017
By rights this review,
the review of the 2018 Oscar for best picture The Shape of Water should have been done by Frank Jackman. While we
no longer have specific titles to reflect our areas of various expertise Frank
has long been the main political and cultural reporter on this publication. You
ask how does a film about the improbable love affair between a disabled woman
(a mute), a member of the human species, and a good looking if scaly creature
from the lagoons down the Amazon warrant a political touch. Well beyond this
seemingly blatant attempt to win “flavor of the month” status for yet another
oppressed identity group there is the now wide- open question of whether we,
meaning the human race should permit not only love between members of different
species but permit different species marriage.
However, if Frank had
tackled this film from that approach he would have had a hell-broth of
anti-gay, anti-same sex marriage crazies to contend with who would have claimed
that they had been righteously right to oppose those rights because see where
does the madness end and what about the sanctity of marriage when human pair
with other sentient being. Jesus it would be a blood-bath and Frank would
probably have to leave town or take an alias-maybe go out among the Mormons like
Allan Jackson tried to do, allegedly tried to do from what later reports by him
informed us happened and see if he could hustle some work with them.
So I drew the assignment
as a favor to new site manager Greg Green since he wanted to cash in on a
different variation on the “boy meets girl” theme that continues this one
hundred plus years later to be a huge hook for Hollywood productions (and a big
money maker too). And so you have what started out a mere curiosity by Elisa,
played by Sally Hawkins, a “talking challenged” person (hell I don’t know what
you call it although I know mute is far too cutting these days reminding me,
and maybe one and all, of the timid person who came up to you in the street
cards in hand claiming deafness and dumbness asking for cash donations. Asking especially
when you had a date you were out to impress with your humanity and gave the
person some change. Some of this I learned later when I was down on my luck was
a classic scam but some of which is the only way to get cash for hard-pressed
people with a disability in those days) when a mysterious creature from out in
the Amazon (a creature straight out of the 1950s creep thriller The Creature From The Black Lagoon) who
looks like maybe some missing link on the evolutionary trail is secreted in secret
CIA-type operation location where she is a cleaning lady to try to figure out
how to use the thing in the on-going Cold War then raging between the United
States and the former Soviet Union.
That curiosity about a sentient
being also trying to survive in a troubled world will eventually turn into what
between humans would be called love, and maybe in inter-species lingo as well. The
problem is that the creature is being mistreated, mishandled by the agent in
charge to the chagrin of Elisa and others including a scientist who is actually
a Soviet spy. Moreover when the agent in charge is ordered to vivisect the amphibian
all hell broke loose as Elisha plotted her honey’s great escape. After a few close
calls and some fancy foot work Elisa gets her man out of harm’s way for a while.
In the inevitable eventual confrontation before she can release her now ailing guy
(not enough sea water to keep his strength up) to the open seas where he will
be at home again they are both injured by that wicked Cold War agent who in
return is wasted by the amphibian. Things work out okay though because this mad
monk monster has some curative powers which gets he and his honey well in the
open ocean. Things work out well but if and when “inter-species” marriages
become the flavor of the month among progressives and others watch out all bets
are off. But at least you know where the campaign got its start.
