Films by M. Night Shyamalam: A New Age Hitchcock
M. Night Shyamalam, a native of India, now resides in Philadelphia. His films have made him a reputation of being a kind of occult, new age Hitchcock. Like Hitchcock, Shyamalam likes to appear in cameo roles in his own films. Filled with suspense, they tend to blur the boundaries of reality and fantasy. And each of his films has a twist, one that one usually does not see coming, but one that one to gasp with that “Oh my God!” moment that is very rare these days in the movies.
The Sixth Sense
Child psychologist Malcom Crowe, played by Bruce Willis, is visited in his home one night by a young man who used to be one of his patients. The young man shoots Crowe in the stomach and then kills himself, having not been helped by Crowe. Some time later, Crowe is retained to help a young boy named Cole Sear, played by Haley Joel Osment. Cole has a big problem. He claims that he sees the spirits of the dead, many of whom do not realize that they are dead. Some of these spirits would terrify an adult. For a child, they are inhabitants of a special, exquisite hell that he cannot escape.
At first, Crowe believes that Cole is profoundly insane and doubts that he can help him. But, slowly, steadily, Crowe begins to believe that Cole can actually see the dead spirits. The two then proceed on a quest to find out why Cole has this ability and what he is meant to do with it. It turns out that each is fulfilling a purpose.
In this film, Osment established himself as a veritable pint sized Olivier. His ability to communicate an entire range of emotions with just a word or gesture is uncanny and would be marvelous in an actor many times his few years. Willis gives one of the performances of his career, never overshadowing his young co star, yet giving something far beyond his usual Die Hard repertoire.
The twist ending comes as a shock. One cannot see it coming. Yet, one is driven to look back and see all of the clues the director left in the film indicating what was really going on. One nods ones head and says to oneself, of course. That’s why.
Unbreakable
Bruce Willis plays a security guard named David Dunn. He is the sole survivor of a train derailment that has left him completely unharmed. He is approached by Elijah Price, played by Samuel L. Jackson, a comic book expert. Price tells him that he is not only endowed with special powers but has been given them for a purpose. At first, Dunn dismisses Price’s suggestions. But the he realizes that he has never been ill, never been hurt, has strength beyond that of most humans, and an ability to tell whether someone has done or is about to do evil.
Price, is in many ways, Dunn’s opposite. Price is cursed with a disease that makes his bones incredibly brittle. The least mishap or fall will leave him crippled for a long time. Price believes that he and Dunn are linked somehow, the opposite ends of a curve. Dunn also comes to accept his gifts and realizes that his purpose, just like a super hero in a comic book, is to fight evil and help people.
The twist ending is, like in the Sixth Sense, a horrible shock. And yet, as with the previous movie, one ought to have seen it coming, if only one had been paying attention. Willis and Jackson turn in remarkable, understated performances that stretch their type casting.
Signs
Graham Hess, a farmer in rural Pennsylvania played by Mel Gibson, used to by a minister. But the horrible, freak accident
that took the life of his wife destroyed his faith and caused him to leave the ministry and his church. Months later, he and his family start finding crop circles in his field. These circles are intricate patterns that are occasionally found in wheat fields that some people believe are left by space aliens. There are also weird noises and movements taking place on the farm, especially at night. Then news reports state that there are similar circles popping up in farms all over the world. It is the prelude of a very nasty alien invasion that will test Hess and his family. The sequence during the invasion takes place entirely inside the Hess house, mostly in the cellar where they hide to ride out the crisis.
The movie, though well acted by Gibson and Joaquin Phoenix, playing the oldest Hess son, has a number of flaws. For one thing, Hess seems to be the only farmer in America who does not have a shot gun or rifle in the house, something which figures very much into the last part of the movie. Also, the aliens turn out to have a vulnerability that would seem to preclude them going anywhere near our planet, not to mention trying to make it their own. The flaws detract from the
enjoyment of what otherwise would have been another masterpiece by Shyamalam.
The Village
The Village takes place in a small, rural community in the 19th Century surrounded by a wood. The Village is a utopian style society overseen by a benevolent council of elders, played by, among others, William Hurt and Sigourney Weaver. The forest is filled with frightening, supernatural creatures with whom the villages have a pact. The villagers do not
enter the woods and the creatures do not enter the village. The creatures wear red hoods and red is a “bad color” upon which villages cannot look.
But then a young, adventurous man named Lucius Hunt, played by Joaquin Phoenix enters the
woods, stirring the wrath of the creatures. They enter the village and leave terrifying tokens. More disasters happen, blood is shed, and Ivy Walker, the blind daughter of one of the elders, played by Bryce Dallas Howard, must enter the woods on a quest to get medicine from a place called “the towns” and somehow survive.
The twist ending in this film was a good, shocking surprise. However, what it revealed does not make much sense, if one thinks about it too closely. That is balanced out by the wonderful performance by Bryce Howard, the daughter of film director Ron Howard, that is at once vulnerable and strong willed.
