Mainly, I hate sci-fi, fantasy, and horror movies. The Shape of Water is all of the above–sort of. I have never seen any Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings movies. None. I know that this is an ignorant prejudice, but it is there and it is real. Frankly, the only reason I went to see this move is that I am trying to see all 9 movies that have been nominated this year for Academy Awards Best Picture. I have enough confidence in the Awards to believe that any film nominated for Best Picture will be reasonably good.

Much to my surprise I really loved this movie. The movie was directed by Guillermo del Toro and written by him and Vanessa Taylor. They have crafted a fine story. It is a love story. In addition to sci-fi, fantasy, or horror, we get love. A very strange love story, of course.

The love connection is between a mute cleaning lady at a top-secret government facility in 1962 at the height of the cold war and a humanoid swamp creature. The first time we see the creature is with a sudden shock that is typical of horror movies. Soon we realize that the only horror in the movie comes from the humans. They are the menacing creatures.

The creature, played by Doug Jones, cannot talk but sure can understand. It understands that the villain is a monster and the mute is something to be loved. The villains are General Frank Hoyt (played by Nick Searcy) and a squared-jawed Colonel Richard Strickland, (played by Michael Shannon). They decide to vivisect the creature as soon as its usefulness disappears. To them the creature is referred to as “the asset;” a label as cold and merciless as “resource.”

To the Colonel even love is brutal. Sex with his wife is an act of brutality with missionary position zeal. It is more of an assault than an act of love. Strickland is a cold and cruel representative of that unattractive part of our species that is quick to torture that which we do not know or understand. Rather than trying to respect it as a fellow creature, we immediately chose to poke it, prod it, hurt it, and when done, kill it. We kill for no good reason. We kill just because we lack the empathy to see the other as a fellow traveller on our meandering journey. Humans are the true purveyors of horror. (Of course we have some good points too).

An unlikely squad of misfits protects the creature. A reluctant Russian spy/scientist, Robert Hoffstetler (Michael Stuhlbarg) who has pangs of conscience, an African-American cleaning lady, Zelda, (Octavia Spencer), and a hapless artist Giles (Richard Jenkins).

The most important of the rebels is of course Eliza (Sally Hawkins), the mute cleaning lady who comes to identify with the creature–who might be a green god, because he bleeds, he suffers, and like her, he is mute. They are both strange. In more than one way they are one. As she says, “I move my mouth like him, I make no sound, like him, all that I am, all that I’ve ever been, brought me here to him. When 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.”

Eliza not only identifies with the creature, but also comes to love it. Reading an ancient Persian poem, Giles says of her, as one might say of God, green or otherwise, “Unable to perceive the shape of You, I find You all around me. Your presence fills my eyes with Your love, It humbles my heart, For You are everywhere.”

In this film Mildred Hayes played by Frances McDormand, in a powerful rage as a result of the lack of progress in the investigation of her daughter’s rape and murder, arranges for 3 large billboards to express that rage. She takes out her rage on the police department that she thinks spends too much time torturing black people to do a proper investigation of her daughter’s case. She specifically mentions the local sheriff Bill Willoughby played with typical grinning brilliance by perennial bad boy Woody Harrelson. He too feels anger because he has been diagnosed with terminal cancer. Every character feels anger in the film except one–Pamela the beautiful but air-headed 19-year old girl friend of Hayes’ ex-husband.

Willoughby however has learned to get over his anger. He has one last wonderful day, playing hookie and fishing with his two daughters, and keeping them occupied while he and his wife make love one last time. He later says in his suicide note that it was the best day of his life. When his daughter ask if Mommie is drunk, he replies she just has “a Chardonnay headache.”

We got the feeling that the Chief, Willoughby, had no respect for his young deputy, but he urges is young deputy to get rid of his hate. If he wants to be a good detective he must love–not hate. “Hate never solved anything,” he wisely says.

Amazingly, it is Pamela the intellectually challenged girl friend who brings the epiphany that delivers the moral center to the film from words she has read on a book marker while she was reading “that book about polio, you know the ones with horses.” The words that bring thematic focus to the film together with Willoughby’s suicide notes are that “anger begets greater anger.” Friedrich Nietzsche did not say it much better than that when he explored the topic of resentment. She may be dim, but she understands, what so many others fail to understand without great suffering.

The one weakness I found in the film was the religious theme. When a local priest comes to visit her, Mildred angrily and crudely rails at him—comparing the Catholic church to a gang and suggesting that he and every other churchman is “culpable” for the many abuses of children perpetrated by priests. They might be culpable but I did not think this worked well in the movie.

On another occasion Mildred sits by herself mulling things over when she says, echoing Dostoevsky’s Ivan Karamazov, “there ain’t no God, the world’s empty, and it don’t matter what we do to each other.” She noticed a deer near the spot where her daughter and wonders if she is supposed to think her daughter has been reincarnated as a lovely deer.

Mildred and Dixon have an awakening at the end of the film when they seem to realize that revenge is an empty vessel that will bring no nourishment. I don’t know why Mildred would change so drastically after one sleep. I thought it was an unearned, and hence unsatisfying transformation, even though I agree with the sentiment entirely. It was not a hard truth and therefore unsatisfying. Like a cheap thrill.

Recently we celebrated Martin Luther King Day here in the USA. He was not a perfect individual. Few of us are. But he was wise. He said, “I chose love because the burden of hate is too great.” That was a deeply earned insight.

Finally I commend the music in the film particularly the final song written by Townes Van Zandt, one of my favorites, and sung by someone I had never heard of before, Amy Annelle, with her ethereal voice.

Enjoy.

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We drove to Casa Grande to see one more film in our attempt to see all the Academy Award nominated films. This time we saw Lady Bird our 4^th movie in 3 weeks. And all 4 were great. My faith in movies is renewed. Of course it helps that none of these films had a super hero. I don’t think I need to see one more superhero.

The film is a coming-of-age story from the point of a view of a bright, lively, rebellious, and far from perfect 17 year old girl, Christine, (who gave herself the name Lady Bird because she wanted a name of her own, not one given by her parents). It was minor rebellion, but not her last. The film was written and directed by Greta Gerwig who deserves an immense amount of credit cinematic gem.

Saoirse Ronan, the star of last year’s Brooklyn, which we also enjoyed in Arizona, plays Lady Bird. The central core of this movie is her difficult and complicated relationship with her mother whom she clearly loves, though not without challenges.

The movie opens with a scene in which the 2 have been on a car trip looking at colleges. Mother (played by Laurie Metcalfe) and daughter are both crying over the final passages of John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath. We get the impression that these two have a great ideal relationship. That feeling is quickly dissolved as they argue over which college Ladybird should go. Lady Bird wants to go out east where there is culture, not Sacramento, her hometown, which is “the Midwest of California.” The ride ends with a shock. Not a happy shock.

I loved the scene where mother and daughter were shopping together in a department store for a special dress. They constantly bicker and argue until the mother spots a great dress and Lady Bird is instantly ecstatic. This reminded me of another great movie, The Commitments, in which the band was constantly arguing until they got on stage and played music that was magic. All dissension melted away in the beauty of the songs.

Lady Bird’s best friend, Julie, is played by Beanie Feldstein.  Their relationship is also complicated. Life is never simple except in the Hallmark movies. There is a wonderful scene where the two of them wolf down a whole box of communion wafers as if they were fast food. Perhaps they are fast food? They play a great trick on the nun who is principal of the school, when they tie a “Just Married to Jesus” sign on the back of her car. After Lady Bird dumps her friend for a more popular friend Julie points out that she is a “moron in a deeper sense.” Not in the ordinary sense of someone like Donald Trump I suppose.

Lady Bird also has an interesting relationship with a seemingly perfect boy friend, Danny, played by Lucas Hedges, until she discovers he is more interested in boys than girls. At a school dance, when they are dancing too close, the nun walks by and says, “Leave 6 inches for the Holy Spirit,” which I have learned is what the Nuns always said.

Her second choice of a boyfriend is hardly better. That is Kyle played by Timothée Chalamet. He is a listless cad who deceives her into thinking that he is losing his virginity with her as she is with him. When he admits she is his 6^th , Lady Bird starts to cry. She says to him, I wanted it (her first sex) to be special. He asks, “Why? You’re going to have so much unspecial sex in your life.”

When Kyle comes to pick her up to take her to the prom, he stays in the car car and honks his horn. Her father asks Lady Bird, “You won’t go to a guy who honks for you will you?” Sadly, showing her rebelliousness is not yet complete, she does run to him. Her individuality has limits. Those limits are shown again when the cool kids say lets skip the prom and Lady Bird, obviously disappointed, acquiesces in order to be cool. Fortunately she later asserts herself and goes with her best friend Julie instead. The rebel matures.

Lady Bird thinks that she has already finished the learning part of High School, but this is far from true. With her friends she learns that smoking, drinking, and sex aren’t all they’re cracked up to be either.

I also loved the scene with the Nun principal, who had read her essay to get into college. The Nun told her, “It’s clear how much you love Sacramento.” This comes as a surprise to Lady Bird (and me and probably all viewers who have learned how frustrated she is about her home town). Lady Bird has a thoughtful reply: “I guess I pay attention.” To which the wise Sister replies, “Don’t you think they’re the same thing?”

All in all I loved the movie about a young girl who was able to confront the fears that so many of us have. And not just young people either. have: Fear of not being accepted. Fear of not being loved. Fear of the future. Fear of failure. Fear of not pleasing your loving parents. Lady Bird makes missteps, but she shines. She shines for us all, lighting the way, because we all need more light and more bravery.

I have always loved detective stories. I have liked every detective. So I am incapable of being critical about them. Though I hate it when they are not honest. By that I mean I hate if the author does not provide all the facts that allow us to figure it out. The facts have to be there so if we were as smart as the detective—which we never are—we could have figured it out to. Anything less than this is cheating. It is as bad as cheating at cards or exams or life. Sadly, this movie cheats. The detective Hercule Poirot is given facts that are withheld from us. How can we possibly compete? We can’t of course, the playing field, like the railway track on which the train is stuck, is not level.

This movie is based on a 1934 Agatha Christie novel in which her legendary detective Hercule Poirot is trapped  on a famous train stranded in the mountains by an avalanche with 13 other people. One of them gets murdered and all of the other 12, are suspects. The stage is set for a mystery to be solved. Just like Jesus at the Last Supper wanted to figure out who betrayed him.

Why then do we love detective novels so much? Not everyone does, but enough do. Apparently Christie sold 2 billion copies of her books putting her nearly on par with God. That is pretty good company. The detective encounters a scene of devastating chaos with a blizzard of clues. There is mayhem, murder, and inexplicable violence. It is chaos in other words. The murderer could be any one of the 12 disciples.

It is the detective’s job to make sense out of the chaos. He must bring order out of the disorder. He must make the world right again. The detective has to be the one to do it because he is the only one capable of doing it. As the detective says, when asked who he is, “My name is Hercule Poirot and I am probably the greatest detective in the world.” The detective is clever, diligent and implacable. He can never be turned from his purpose. The detective must do it “because God is always busy.” The detective finds the chaos that we all encounter. He is not afraid to enter into it even though it is dangerous.

Poirot is the central character in the movie. It all revolves around him. He is not afraid. He demands order. He sets out in search of the truth because we must be ‘better than murderers’. Poirot  sets out impeccably attired and adorned with the most improbable and flamboyant of moustaches, and demi-goatee beneath his lower lip, both waxed to perfection of course. When he is served 2 eggs they must be equal. Exactly equal. There can be no imbalance. When Poirot steps into shit on the street of Jerusalem he abhors the imbalance of having it on one shoe  only. So he steps into it again this time with the other foot, to balance the shit. He will not tolerate the imbalance. If he sees someone with a tie askew he is upset, so he points it out. Poirot demands the world be set to right.

In the film the body is seen from the classic God’s eye view—above on high. That technique, I think was invented by that master of cinema Alfred Hitchcock and Kenneth Branagh who directs the film and plays  the leading role  pays homage to the master.

Into the darkness the detective brings only one tool—his powerful mind. He brings the power of reason and in that way shows that the world is still subject to reason. He brings order out of disorder. The detective shows that no matter how chaotic the world appears, ultimately in the end it all makes sense. The detective brings reason and observation and skill to the task at hand and in that way draws out justice from the injustice and chaos.

Hercules sets out to find the “fracture in the soul” where evil lurks. Like Leonard Cohen who says there is a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in. In the end the detective discovers the meaning in the world. Until then we are like dogs in a library. The detective brings meaning back to the world and for that we are eternally grateful. I think that is why we love detective stories—whether in films or novels. We are very uncomfortable with the absence of meaning and we love to see it restored to the world.

The final revealing of the truth by God’s immortal agent is staged in a setting in the train tunnel with the 12 suspects all arrayed on a long table exactly like the 12 disciples in Leonardo da Vinci’s immortal painting of the Last Supper. The resemblance is no coincidence. Poirot is Jesus and like Jesus he wants to find the one who betrayed him. Despite the strange staging, Poirot says as if he means it, “You will have to answer to two people: Your god, and Hercule Poirot.”

In the end when the holy truth is revealed and justice should be restored at last, in this case, Poirot finds he cannot accept that truth. Instead he says, for reasons I cannot reveal as it would spoil the movie, he “will accept the imbalance.” Even though that goes against every grain in his body. Sometimes murderers go free and there is no apparent justice. But perhaps that lack of perfection is in some cases, like this one, good. Perfection, as we know, can be the enemy of the good.