THE SHAPE OF WATER
“Mais quand, malgré la souffrance, un désir est murmuré, il suffit qu’un autre l’entende pour la brise reprenne flamme” Boris Cyrulnik, Le murmure des fantômes
A story of resilience of some sort
A story about listening and being heard
A fairy tale and a political parable
A film crossing generic lines
Characters moving across boundaries
Love as frontier, not border.
The sacrifice (killing) of a being to research
The blinding effect of assumptions or denials
The silencing of minorities and other ‘Others’
The ruthless treatment of humans turned machines (the role of institutions and other places of power in the overall dehumanizing of people turned into ‘agents’ indeed)
Yet the silence of the disenfranchised (because of their race, gender, class and age or handicap) speaks louder than words
In our Posthuman context there is more to the “happy ending” than first meets the eye:
A tribute to the force of our humanity
Whitmanian songs of compassion, understanding and healing:
Leaves of water, We celebrate ourselves.
The Meliès-like quality of a “trip to the moon”
The magic and wonder that cinema enacts and triggers and invites.
Some happy resolution for the characters
Some sense of closure for the viewers.
Yet we might imagine an alternative narrative for the movie
The way La La Land proposed one last year: the uncanny lovers’ story could take place on earth (in our world) and not in water (the world of fantasy, or any place that is not our world).
And the shape of a dream beyond
If only we decided to take the time to share an egg, a piece of music, or a dance.
In an unlikely place, with an unlikely friend, in our likely world.
« Il n’est pas fou de vouloir vivre et d’entendre au fond du gouffre un léger souffle qui murmure que nous attend, comme un soleil impensable, le bonheur » Boris Cyrulnik, Le murmure des fantômes
Marie Liénard-Yeterian