When I saw the Shutter Island movie again, it was about three times. The first time I watched the movie was in high school, and soon after I bought the novel and read it, the last time was in the film elective class this semester. I've always thought that a good movie can be chewed over and over and can give me a different feeling each time. After a few years, the details of the plot are somewhat forgotten, but the first impression of this movie left a deep impression on me. The soundtrack also exists in the sci-fi movie Advent, which is very suitable for such slow-paced and sad movies), and it has a thought-provoking open ending. When I watched the film again, I was still a little shocked by these, especially how I could pay attention to how the director laid out those details.
Water is the first thing I noticed, and it is also the element that runs through the whole film the most. From the seasickness of the protagonist at the beginning of the movie, it can be seen that he does not like water. There is also the appearance of water in the storm behind, and in the protagonist's fantasy. Water represents the past, the entanglement of the past that cannot be remembered. The male protagonist originally thought he was a federal agent investigating the missing suspect, but slowly he found out that he was actually the patient because of the tragedy of the past - his insane wife drowned his son and daughter and he killed him in tears. Wife, because he was in too much pain, the brain's protective mechanisms were triggered to justify a new federal agent's story and live in it. The drowning of his beloved child made him disgusted with water. "It's just water, a lot of water." The male protagonist complained like this at the beginning.
The rhythm of the movie is slow overall, but it cleverly uses conspiracy to capture the hearts of the audience. In the first half of the film, the director deliberately created a conspiracy of an evil mental hospital for everyone. At the same time, this is also the perspective of the male protagonist as "Police Officer Teddy". The dean and colleagues prison guards are bad people, and they do human experiments. Cover up and so on, and as a federal agent he's going to expose the conspiracy. But as the male protagonist went deeper, he didn't find substantial evidence, so he put his hope in the beacon - a place where he thought these evil people experimented. It's just that it's not the conspiracy that awaits him, it's his past. Doctors revealed his past to him and told him that it was a role-playing therapy to awaken his sanity and avoid forced brain surgery. At this point, conspiracy and water complement each other to form a closed loop.
After the male protagonist regained his memory and sanity, the doctor told him that they had used the same method to cure him, but it didn't take long for him to return to his story again. They repeatedly confirmed whether he really recovered, and the male protagonist affirmed them one by one. The next day, when the attending doctor sat next to him, he found that he seemed to have changed again, and the outcome of the operation was inevitable. Immediately after, the male protagonist said the most classic words in the whole movie, "Which would be worse? To live as a monster or to die as a good man" ("Which would be worse? To live as a monster or to die as a good man") ”) Then the male protagonist got up and walked towards the prison guard who led the way, and his eyes seemed to be slightly different from those of “Teddy” before. Different audiences have different interpretations of the ending of the movie, just like the ending of another movie Inception played by Xiao Lizi, no matter which view is right or wrong. What I personally agree with is that the male protagonist has actually recovered his sanity, but he just doesn't want to live like this anymore. The doctor also saw it, but still chose to silently respect and watch him go away.
After all, for the unfortunate past, some people can get out of it, and some people may indulge in it for a lifetime. Maybe this is the best ending for the male protagonist - instead of living as a murderer, it is better to die as a just federal police officer...
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