Going to a new Martin Scorsese film is something more than a simple movie experience for the hardened movie nerd. It’s an experience, an event. Since The Departed won four Oscars it’s been a whole while of waiting – sitting through other, lesser directors attempts; I’m coimng from a slanted perspective in that I have waxed lyrical in the past about the Rolling Stones concert movie Shine a Light, and hardly anybody liked that. (Something about a theatre gig being played at arena speed or some such…)

Shutter Island sees Scorsese go back to the B-movie thriller roots of Cape Fear (good as it was, I’ve never revisted it – fairly unpleasant experience, that one). In its own way it’s a haunted house movie. It’s got this Jaws-like score going through it, hammering through to you, starting from the opening logo and never really letting go. The film starts very busy, Scorsese’s rigid attention to detail in the edits, the close-ups of light bulbs, doorknobs; the set decoration and art direction where everything seems purposeful, yet it would probably require a second or third viewing to really figure it all out (check out The Departed and look in the background for the constant Xs – it does in that film literally mark the spot, and it takes serious analysis to figure out its purpose). I think we’re supposed to be confused and consumed by these details; perhaps thrown off the scent of the serious, yet not-too-unforseeable twist that operates at the heart of the film.

Scorsese is using his tale to question reality, at which he’s whittling away with every scene. Much like so many of his works, Shutter Island explores the theme of men and paranoia. DiCaprio, as the federal marshal investigating a disappearance in the titular mental hospital, approaches the material with constant seriousness and a wholehearted devotion to it. It looks exhausting, almost as intense as his turn in the psychologically devastating Revolutionary Road. The film is an exhausting experience with its ever-present tone assaulting the senses. The sound design is constant and oppressive; Robert Richardson’s camera darts back and forth between people, objects and moments like the suspicious, shifty eyes DiCaprio shows in the film’s poster. Light and dark intercede and the director certainly knows what he’s doing within the genre. The conventions are met head-on, but at no point is what we’re seeing ‘conventional’. We’re not bearing witness to cliche, but understandable and familiar territory covered by someone who couldn’t be more tuned into the process and the subject.

The film is rife with atmosphere, taking its cues of 1950s noir and the then-prevailing current of paranoia – identity, conspiracy and self-awareness are all under question here, and the film successfully taps into many a person’s worst fear – of being falsely imprisoned, accused and manipulated; of being the olnly person in the nuthouse who knows the truth. A little seen, similarly toned thriller from a few years back, Identity, trod similar ground, although with significantly less success. DiCaprio is stellar – full-throated, unflinching and in control of his performance, as the character he plays loses control of himself and his surroundings. Also of note is Ben Kingsley, great in so many films, but here so sinister with an underplayed role, who smiles consummate villainy.

It is, by its nature, and the fact that we have 35 years’ of Scorsese films by which to compare it, a less ‘important’ work. By lesser, it’s the second rung of his screen credits. But it’s a very, very good movie – an unashamedly mainstream work which makes you wish he made more movies. I want to go to a festival of his next five films right away. I simply cannot wait to see what he does next.