The Shape of Water

Colour in Guillermo del Toro’s 2017 film is a key rather than decoration. Cinematographer Dan Laustsen has said del Toro wanted red in the frame only when a scene was about love or death, and that the water and everything near it were fixed on green and steel blue. Elisa’s apartment is lit in that cold palette, except during the bathroom scenes with the creature, when the light turns golden. You can read where the character has arrived off the colour temperature before the scene tells you, which makes it the most rewarding thing to track on a rewatch. The second thing is scale. Made for under twenty million dollars, the film shows its constraint in useful ways. The creature is a suit with a performer inside rather than a digital build, and the story stays almost entirely in interiors. Doug Jones worked the part out in a dance studio and settled on carrying the character like a matador. Even the submerged opening is not water: the stage was filled with smoke and lit through film projectors. It took thirteen nominations at the Academy Awards and won four, for picture, director, production design and original score. Not for you if you want real underwater photography or a fully digital monster. The sexuality and violence are explicit.