well, actually all his movies are silly–the plots immediately disposable and not worth holding up to much scrutiny. but shyamalan usually does a very good job of keeping you going till you get to the twist ending. i don’t know if i would watch his first three movies again (not only because they might not be fun once you know the twist) but i enjoyed all of them while i was watching them. he is a master of his genre, making really expensive b-movies, and he always scares me (but i do admit i scare easily). the problem with this one is that it is more dependent on dialogue than the others and shyamalan just doesn’t write dialogue very well. however, the atmospheric stuff, the sound, the music, the lighting–all of this is exceptional.
more on the movie below but proceed only if you don’t plan to see it
okay, so i said the plots of shyamalan’s movies are disposable and not worth holding up to scrutiny but let me quibble a little anyway:
1) has he heard of gated communities?
2) the movie seems to be setting itself up as an allegory of the war on terror and its trading on fear. you figure out pretty early that the elders are probably scaring the others in order to protect them. but at the end of the movie the idea seems to be that the lie is worth perpetuating. then again maybe this is meant to be the most chilling payoff of the movie–if so, it doesn’t come across.
3) this is not a quibble, but something i liked: the switching of protagonists in the two halves of the movie. i didn’t see this coming, and while the actress, or more precisely her character, grated on me i liked this twist in the movie.
i’d like to see him direct something written by someone else, someone with a better ear and less investment in twists.
Yeah, I’m with you on this, Arnab. I actually found “Signs” the sharpest of MNS’s films, in his ability to create suspense and to portray characters who actually interacted with others. (The first two films had their twists, but dialogue was stilted and portentous, as if everyone was giving a soliloquy, rather than talking to another person. In “Signs,” largely as a result of Joaquin Phoenix and yet another good cute little Culkin kid, there was a subtle wit to the mundaneness of conversations… which heightened the suspense greatly. Even though the ending sucked, the film was solid and scary.)
But the few highlights of “Village” seem stolen from other films; in particular, the moment where protagonist shifts–the scene with Brody and Phoenix–seems lifted right out of (with some exact shots from) “Saving Private Ryan”. And I hope all Howards, aside from Clint doing anything and Ron when doing voiceover for “Arrested Development,” leave moviemaking forever.) Muddled, unfrightening, and … well, without the clarity of plot or the build-up of suspense, there’s nothing to speak of in a Shyamalan film.
I keep waiting for a) a great film that grapples with the aftermath of 9/11 (and not just tangentially, as Spike Lee did very well in “25th Hour”) and b) another good horror film out of Hollywood. When was the last one? That wasn’t a remake? And don’t say “Cabin Fever,” which was good but was a remake of every ’70s goofball-redneck-exploitation film.
Ten minutes into The Village, I thought to myself “Well, what’s the twist in this one going to be?” I found it soon after. Live by the sword, die by the sword. Shyamalan better start expanding his range of material or he’s going to become even more gimmicky as time goes on.
I found Bryce Dallas Howard to be a very compelling performer. Her scenes in The Village felt honest to me (that being said, no one could play that scene in the forest toward the end of the film). I don’t think Lars von Trier will be the one, but some director some day is going to make a star out of this actor.
the happening makes the village look like one of the great artistic triumphs of cinema. shyamalan remains very good at creating a sense of foreboding, and at composing arresting visual sequences, but there’s far, far less to this than meets the eye or occasionally jangles the nerves. marky mark is horrendously miscast, and zooey deschanel was apparently only asked to keep making her eyes round. and shyamalan really needs to get a writer–he has a tin ear.
there is a very good movie in here though, and it is in the last 20 minutes where wahlberg and company arrive at the home of a strange old woman. if the entire film had been set there it could have been pretty good.