Great Movies: The Shape of Water (2017) - An Endless Ocean of Understanding
By: Erin
Posted: November 21, 2023
Originally Written: August 11, 2023
Image courtesy of TheMovieDB
Revisiting The Shape of Water, I finally understood the heartache that lay within the DNA of this wondrous fairytale. I previously never really thought of this film as a horror until Joe Bob Briggs mentioned that it was "the only horror film to win the Academy Award for Best Picture", but in my older, more horror-attuned years, it's so obvious that while it's a powerful romance it deserves to be recognized as the horror movie it is as well. Everything leading up until Elisa meets the Monster is pure Universal horror, and even after the pivot there are uncomfortable and violent scenes that do not shy away from the inspirations of the film. This movie is unafraid and unashamed. I saw this film initially on stream with my now-partner in 2017. How naive we were - the best of friends, ready to move in together, neither of us ready yet to say how much we loved the other. I didn't even know I was queer at that point, or at least I couldn't admit to myself what that gnawing feeling was deep in my heart. It feels like yesterday, yet so much has changed that it also feels like a lifetime ago. The distance between 2017 and 2023 is as much a rivulet as it is a gulf.
It's funny how much I remembered as I watched, or even before I watched - despite seeing this film only once all those years ago, it was all so intimately familiar and seared into my memory. We have a poster from the theatrical release that a friend of ours was able to steal from his job at the time - the white one, you've seen it. It hung in our hallway both at the old apartment and our current house. It was the first poster I put up as soon as we got it framed. It's a beautiful poster but sometimes I would look at it and wonder if I truly loved the film like I remembered. A foolish question - upon rewatch I realized I loved it all the more. Is there any sequence more emotionally impactful and beautiful than Elisa and her Creature diving deep into the depths, into a world of endless expanse, an uncertain future that can only be theirs? It is fantastically, achingly sad and sweet.
Sometimes my love for my partner and the world we live in overwhelms me. Our private life together cannot be understood by my family, who I still have not come out to. I barely understand myself - how can I possibly hope to make them understand? And yet I don't have to explain myself to Mandy, the love of my life. They know me because they care to know me, as intricately as we deserve. We contain worlds, and we see worlds in each others' eyes.
"When he looks at me, the way he looks at me. He does not know what I lack or how I am incomplete. He sees me for what I am, as I am. He's happy to see me. Every time, every day."
As queer people, and especially as queer disabled people, we are the monsters and the outliers. Guillermo del Toro understands what Clive Barker showed us in Nightbreed decades ago, what James Whale showed us in Frankenstein even further before. We are the monsters - but we are passionate lovers, devoted healers, ferocious animals, and together we can create intricate worlds under the sea. Who cares if those on land don't understand us? Why do we need to be understood? Why can't we just be?
I watched The Shape of Water in conjunction with Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, a movie Mandy loves that I hadn't seen. What a uniquely powerful double feature - a dream, a nightmare, a dream again. They beg the question - despite all the hardship in the world, would you do it all over again? Emphatically, I say, of course I would.
It's funny, every single day since 2017 I would think about what Giles told himself he would do if he could give his 18-year-old self some advice - "take better care of your teeth and fuck a lot more". We have so many lives ahead of us. As queer people we have lived, we do live and live again, and we will live forever. So create beauty, create art, live life loudly, and find your space under the sea, your space where you are seen for yourself and not for the life the others think you lack. We create love in the empty sectors and find love in the darkness, illuminating our world with luminescence and beauty. Understand the ever-changing Shape of Water, a film that celebrates the simple yet transgressive and radical act of love.
Be compassionate, be resourceful, and be kind. But stand strong.