The Shape Of Love

Had the pleasure of viewing 'The Shape of Water' last night...far and away the best movie I've seen this year. Guillermo Del Toro's multidimensional metaphoric and magically magnificent masterpiece resonates on a variety of levels simultaneously. It is an embrace of 'the other', a powerful demonstration of truth speaking to power, a renunciation of vile and racist classism, a tender romantic love story, a renunciation of hierarchy, a testament of courage prevailing over fear, an exposure of the surreality of mythical history, and a celebration of the enduring human spirit in confrontation with institutional cruelty. Perhaps the most deeply realized and artistically rendered theme, however, was that the principle of Universal Love is at once ubiquitous, ineffable, and constantly available; its essence, fluid and transparent...the shape of water.