Shutter Island

1954. A lighthouse against a grey sky. A graveyard in a storm. A lonely hospital for the criminally insane. On an island. If Martin Scorcese’s latest flick is anything, it’s atmospheric.

While it begins with a top-notch Leo DiCaprio in a snazzy fedora being sent by ferry to investigate a disappearance at the titular institution, Shutter Island is clearly not going to place all its cards on the table. In fact, halfway through the film you’ll be wondering if those are cards at all, or if there even is a table.

As in any good mystery, nothing here is what it seems. We have an innately creepy set-up, with the hospital divided into the A Ward for men, B Ward for women and C Ward for those criminally mental patients too mentally criminal to be allowed with the others. We have a cast of characters - including Ben Kingsley’s bowtie-wearing Dr. Cawley - whose personalities might shift in any direction at any given moment. And with Emily Mortimer, Mark Ruffalo, Michelle Williams, Patricia Clarkson, Jackie Earle Haley and Max Von Sydow in the cast, this is ‘Cluedo’ as you’ve never seen it.

But that’s treating the film too lightly, even if its drama is writ a whole lot larger than Scorcese’s last film, 2007’s The Departed. Shutter Island is far from a lobotomy victim. It plunges into its themes of madness, guilt, repression and violence (‘If I were to sink my teeth into your eye right now, could you stop me before I blinded you?’), and wrings such menace from its many standout moments that it puts most recent horror movies to shame.

Aside from some dodgy CGI during the dream sequences, Shutter Island is built on vintage techniques to send shivers down the spine; the sound design is particularly impressive, reflecting a character’s state of mind through rich audial textures. With the help of cinematographer Robert Richardson, the film also contains some of the most stunning imagery in Scorcese’s repertoire. Shots linger on smiling patients; on army generals bleeding from the neck; on dead children in a lake; on a frozen pile of bodies in a snowy concentration camp… It’s like a 21st-century Val Lewton film for RKO.

Yes, some parts of the resolution are a little far-fetched and yes, the ending is dragged out by a few minutes, but that hardly matters. Shutter Island is a thrilling blend of old-school chills and modern blood. With the ugly themes of madness and violence standing in stark contrast to its visual beauty, it is perhaps Scorcese's most haunting film.



Released in cinemas on 12th March 2010 by Paramount Pictures.

Written by Polis Loizou.