The Shape of Water is a strangely beautiful fantasy drama
directed and mostly written by Guillermo Del Toro, a Mexican film maker who
won an Academy Award for best director.
The story depicts a mute woman
named Elisa Esposito who is abandoned as a baby at the side of a river with her
vocal chords severed. Elisa works as a cleaning woman in a laboratory in
Baltimore in the early 1960s. Her best friends are Giles, a gay man, and a
black co-worker named Zelda Delilah Fuller. The plot centers on Elisa's
relationship with a creature from the Amazon jungle that is brought to the lab
to be the object of Cold War experimentation. Elisa and this creature end up
falling in love, much like beauty and the beast.
This film has many biblical resonances that add depth and meaning
to this mythic story. For example, Elisa’s birth is reminiscent of Moses’, who
was also abandoned by a river and later became a liberator of his oppressed people.
Elisa liberates a creature who is oppressed, and represents indigenous people.
Like Elsa, Moses had a speech impediment and needed his brother Aaron to be his
spokesperson. Elisa’s spokesperson is her gay friend Giles, who narrates
the film.
Some have noted that the creature (also known as the Amphibian or
"Asset") can be seen as a Christ figure. Early Christians used the
symbol of the fish since the Greek word for fish 'Ichthys" formed an acrostic: Iesous
Christos Theou Yios Soter, i.e. Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior.
Jesus was associated with water since he was baptized in the River
Jordan, referred to himself as Living Water,walked on water, etc. Water is a
symbol of transformation, purification, and liberation among Jews. God parted
the Red Sea and the Jordan River so that Hebrews could escape oppression and
enter the Promised Land. Paul describes baptism as a death and resurrection
experience:
"We were
therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as
Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may
live a new life." (Romans 6:4).
Water baptism, practiced by immersion in the
early church, created a parallel between fish and converts. Second-century
theologian Tertullian put it this way: "we, little fishes, after the image
of our Ichthys, Jesus Christ, are born in the water."
Another biblical reference is the story of
Ruth and Naomi. In the theater below Elisa's apartment, the movie "The
Story of Ruth" is playing. This movie was released in 1960 and is based on
the biblical story, with Hollywood additions. In the movie Ruth is portrayed as
Moabite idolatress who is converted to monotheism by her husband, the son of a
Jewish emigre named Naomi. The biblical story is about how Naomi's family is
forced to leave their hometown of Bethlehem due to a famine. An economic
immigrant, Naomi and her family move to Moab, a place despised by Jews because
of its idolatry and checkered history (the Moabites were descendants of Lot,
who committed incest with his daughter).
I don't know how much of this story the
director Del Toro knew, but certainly he knew that Ruth, a Moabite, became so
close to her mother-in-law that she left her own people and embraced the God
and culture of Naomi. Ruth returned to Bethlehem, worked on a farm as an
impoverished gleaner (much like a Mexican farm worker), but was able to attract
the attention of the farm owner Boaz because of her beauty and good character.
Because Ruth was a relative through Naomi, she eventually married Boaz and had
children by him.
This Moabiite immigrant not only became a
Jew, she became the grandmother of King David and is regarded by Christians as
the ancestor of Jesus. How could Del Toro not love this amazing story about an
immigrant woman whose success had such far-reaching implications?
The relationship between Naomi and her Moabite daughter-in-law not only
helped them to survive, together they created an ancestral line that
transformed the course of history.
This story illustrates the transforming power
of relationships between people who come from very different backgrounds. This
is also the central theme of Del Toro's movie. A mute woman has a deep,
transformative relationship with a gay man. A black and white woman form a deep
friendship that redeems their lives. And most significant of all, a human forms
a relationship with a creature that is not human, but "amphibian,"
able to live in the world of water and of air.
The word amphibian literally means having a
dual life. This would be an apt description of Jesus the Christ since he
had a dual life, fully divine, fully human, Spirit made flesh
This theology of life-giving relationships is
contrasted with the theology of the main male character in this movie, Colonel
Strickland, the US intelligence officer who prides himself on being
"strict" and successful. He has no empathy for others. When he
discovers a strange creature in the Amazon that is worshiped as a god by
indigenous people, he captures it, tortures it to "tame" it, and
finally tries to kill it so it can be dissected and studied for military
purposes.
Colonel Strickland's theology is based on the
cult of individualism, epitomized in the story of Samson. He sees himself as a
lone strong man fighting in a world of enemies, whether they be Russians or
women. Women like Delilah are his enemies since they have a will and a voice of
their own. Like the creature he calls an "Asset" (i.e. a military
resource), women are inferior beings to Strickland. He sees God as made in
his image--a privileged white man. In a conversation with the black cleaning
lady Zelda Delilah Fuller he says that the creature is not human since humans
are made in God's image. "I'm made in God's image," says Strickland.
"The creature doesn't look like me. So it's not human." He also notes
that Zelda isn't quite made in God's image either, since she is a woman and
black.
All the characters in this movie struggle
with feeling like isolated individuals in an unfriendly world. But Zelda,
Elisa, Giles and the Ambiphian are saved from their isolation through
self-sacrificial friendship and love. Strickland ends up totally alone,
abandoned even by his father figure, General Hoyt. Like Trump, Hoyt sees the
world purely in terms of winners and losers. If Strickland fails in his
mission, he is a loser and consigned to the "universe of shit."
There is no room in the theology of the domination system for failure. There is
no grace.
At one point in the movie, Giles asks Elisa why she is so
concerned about the creature since it is not human. This leads Elisa to
struggle with the ultimate question, what does it mean to be human? The
creature has feelings and can understand language, but is that what makes us
human? Finally, Elisa decides to flip the question. She concludes, "I
don't know if the creature is human, but I know that if we don't try to save
it, we aren't human."
What defines "human" for Elisa is our compassion, our
yearning to save and protect those we love. This movie places this love in a
context that is deeply spiritual. I don't want to be a spoiler and reveal the
ending of this movie, but the final scene leaves us with the same question that
we must face at Easter: do we or do we not believe in a power that can
transcend death? If we surrender ourselves to the power of love, if we are
willing to make the ultimate sacrifice, if we are willing to take the plunge
and die to self, as true baptism requires, do we have faith that we will live a
"new life" that is eternal? This is the ultimate question, one that
this movie leaves it up to us to answer.
