I remember talking about this movie with my friends during a lunch together at a university mensa several months ago; Michelle told us about how subtle the movie was and that she found it rather hard to understand it, which wasn't something I expected to hear from an educated filippino who understands perfect English.
That conversation really drew my interest in the movie; however, i only got to watch it yesterday night. I was fascinated and got quite frustrated when the movie ended, as I couldn't quite get what was actually happening
The movie started with two agents from the Federal Marshall sent to the so-called Shuttle Island, which was basically a mental hospital for criminals, in order to investigate a case of a dangerous prisoner gone missing. Leonardo Dicaprio plays as the main Marshall guy for the case, who had haunting trauma from his wife having been murdered in an arson. From the start to almost the end, Leo was always a sane guy, who seemingly had been sent to the case for some ill purpose, although he kept having hallucinations about his wife and having unwanted dreams. His mental condition was getting worse and worse, probably because of, according to one of scenes, the drug, food, drink and cigarettes he has been given on the island.
His sanity later in the movie became really obscured, as all that had just happened earlier was described by people on the island as just part of his own imagination of making up stories of his new identy as the Marshall agent to cover his traumatic pasts. He was being convinced to accept that he had been admitted into this mental institute for insanity for two years and he had killed his wife for killing their 3 children.
At the end, he appeared as sane as he could be, although after having verbally accepted all that has been told to him. And the tricky part is that for people who have watched the movie, at least for me, there is no way of telling whether Leo's character had always been mentally ill and all the doctors say were true or he was really a Federal Marshall guy who had been tricked into coming onto the island to be committed as a mental patient on purpose. And I have no clue if the movie is trying to convince the audience into making which conclusion.
He's not insane.
- At the start, Leo and his partner did take the ferry from the mainland to the island. If he had always been insane and for 2 years been a patient of this hospital, how could he possibly be allowed to be this free out of the confinement to the island. And all the scene didn't seem like 2 years; they were pretty over the period of less than a week.
- During the investigation, he met 2 patients and 1 sane person (who was intentionally committed into instanity as him), all of whom told him about the island being a dangerous place where some secrecy had been concealed. All seemingly-insane hallucinations were provoked by the drug, food, drink and cigarrettes that have been given to him.
He has always been insane.
- All the sane moments that were seen in the movie were just hallucinated in his mind; nothing was real. That he was on the ferry to the island, that he met the wrongly-declared-as-mentally-sick woman in the cave, that he was a Marshell agent and everything were just made up in his imagination.
- Throughout the movie, nothing bad, no inhumane experiments, were actually found existing on the islands, other than insane people talking about them.
However, for what it's worth, I really like the movie, and I wish to see a sequel of it that would shed more light on all these doubts. :)
