Just Kristin

A dear friend is com­ing to town on Tues­day, and I hope to go with her to see the movie Shut­ter Island. I have been want­ing to see the film since I saw its trailer as a pre­view to Avatar, a film bet­ter viewed with the sound down, head­phones in, and Pink Floyd’s Dark Side on repeat. I was fas­ci­nated from the get-go by Shut­ter Island because:

1. I am com­pletely fas­ci­nated by mad­ness. (“Um, excuse me? We pre­fer to be called ‘dif­fer­ently sane’, ok?” say the monkeys.)
2. I find old, espe­cially aban­doned, insti­tu­tional build­ings to be heart-wrenchingly beau­ti­ful. (Not just insti­tu­tional build­ings like schools, churches, hos­pi­tals and asy­lums, mind you, but any build­ing that was meant to be filled with peo­ple, such as train sta­tions or malls… Is there a word for that kind of build­ing or place?) When they are aban­doned, there is a gor­geous creepi­ness about them…
3. I am all for a well-done sus­pense­ful thriller, and Shut­ter Island seemed to be just that.

Before see­ing the movie, how­ever, I was deter­mined to read the book, as I had heard good things about it. Know­ing that I would have lit­tle time to fin­ish it before my friend arrived, I plowed through it today, and fin­ished it a few hours ago. I am still recov­er­ing, emo­tion­ally. I will not say that it was beau­ti­fully writ­ten, but it is a well-crafted tale. I had a hard time putting it down, and (oddly for me) did not see com­ing what came. I still look for­ward to see­ing the film, but there will have to be uni­corn chasers.