Shutter Island - Violence

Exellent demonstration in thsi film of why non-violence is non-negotiable.

The film is split between a narrative (1) where De Caprio is an FBI investigator seeking to uncover the truth behind a mental asylum which ultimately leads to the suggestion that he has been part of brain experiments and the narrative (2) where he is a patient at that asylum undergoing a radical form of therapy where he is allowed to play out his delusions.

Both narratives (I hope) work until beyond the end of the film where he is seen being taking to the light house to have brain surgery either to pacify his mental illness or to continue the research. I hope the film is this complex though it does look like Scorcese wants the film to conclude with him being delusional.

The point is that he commits a lot of violence during the film. The film could have continued along the lines of narrative 1 and it would have been an exciting FBI investigation. His punching of people all part of the films we are used to seeing. But if we take it from the standpoint of narrative 2 then he looks like a crazed killer living out paranoid delusions and we absolutely don't accept exactly the same violence.

What struck me very hard is that almost all US films could be seen as the actions of paranoid delusional people with the camera just following their delusion - we are used to this type of thinking where we are oppressed, in danger and need to protect ourselves.

Yet from the outside the US individual looks like a paranoid and dabgerous lunatic (as the US looks to the rest of the world in Iraq and Afghanistan).

It showed me that we can never use violence, or even harsh language, because we can always be seen as delusional from the other persons perspective. Only peaceful solutions work whether we are delusional or not. Which lens support to the idea that De Caprio is indeed delusional in the film.