I told myself I wasn't going to get into it
Some of you will be displeased to not find fresh bullshit spewing from this blog three times a day for the next few days. Most of you will be glad.
My brother flew in last night and my parents are coming tomorrow, so my time will be pretty thin, picking them up from the turnip truck and playing big city tour guide.
I saw The Village last night and I want to discuss it so damned badly, but I've got a shit-ton of work to do today so I can get off before my brother locks himself out of my apartment and falls into Puget Sound.
I will say this though, I hate movie marketting more than anything else ever. The Village is less of a horror movie than even Unbreakable was, yet they decided to market it as that. frustrating.
The movie itself was frustrating too.
I'm not sure why, but I have an irrational devotion to M. Night Shyamalan. Less to his work itself(The Village is slightly better than Signs, which was shit) I think, than to the idea of his work, his aesthetic and his storytelling process. He creates modern day fairy tales--fables rich with symbolism. I love that shit. I just wish he'd do a better job of it. I know he has the talent.
The twist, which isn't hard to spot (which you know is coming by default), isn't totally convincing, but it forces you to reflect on the significance of earlier scenes in the way that Shyamalan always does. It scolds you for not paying attention, and makes you remember. It's just messier this time around, he isn't able to tie all the pieces together.
The acting, I think, saves this movie. Adrien Brody is a goddamned G as usual, but his character's subplot is maddeningly irrational. Unfortunately it's also the most important--it's the lynchpin of the whole revelation. That sucks, but it's still decently crafted.
Shyamalan really goes--now that I'm thinking about it--for like 3 or 4 little revelations (I think calling them twists is missing the point a bit--though I did call them that earlier) rather than one big one. I think that might be a good step in his maturation as a filmmaker. If you can't write a great story with an explosive revelation (The Sixth Sense) then it's better to focus more on the story (The Village) than on the revelation (Signs).
So it's good, not great, not Shyamalan good, but good enough.
I wasn't planning on writing this much . . .
posted by Luke @ 2:07 PM
2 comments
2 Comments:
I think I was disappointed by the movie and I think I don’t want to admit it because I’m so sick of being disappointed by things. Even things I actually like are often disappointing because I feel like I don’t like them ENOUGH.
HEY, SPOILER WARNING. JUST IN CASE. I don’t know who might end up reading this, so there’s the warning.
Anyway, I counted two major twists. One, that the creatures in the forest were actually elders in costumes, and two, that the movie takes place in a contemporary setting. Last things first, the second one is barely a twist. Anyone watching this had to think, at least once, “I wonder which era this is?” Followed by, “could this story be taking place in the present?” The first twist…*sigh* I hated for two reasons. First and most simply, it’s ripped off from every episode of Scooby-Doo. I had to say that but it’s completely true. I suppose Shyamalan could be going for sort of an IRONIC twist there. The “guy in costume” trick is so lame that…oh FUCK it. It’s still just lame. Secondly, as you said, it was marketed as a horror film, specifically a creature feature, and that’s what I wanted. Shyamalan has done ghost stories, superhero stories, alien stories, and I wanted this to be a creature feature with his particular brand of filmmaking. And it wasn’t. But it SHOULD have been, because the scenes with the creatures that were supposed to be scary were actually quite nightmarish.
Though calling something “nightmarish” is entirely subjective to the individual’s nightmares and how much of them they remember. Suffice to say, those scenes definitely worked on me, don’t know about anyone else.
Plus, I simply didn’t like the way the characters talk. It turns out there’s a reason for it, but it’s still too damn somber and stilted to not hurt my ears.
I still like Shyamalan but this is my least favorite of his films.
I liked it. Probably a little less than the Sixth Sense, and definately less than Unbreakable (I haven't seen Signs), but I was still fairly pleased.
I must admit that I saw the 'modern twist' coming a bizillion miles away, though I was unsure of *where* they were. When William Hurt made the 'you grandfather ... one dollar ... five dollars speech,' it wanted to come together, but I wouldn't have thought 'big, private animal sanctuary.'
Also, the crimes that the elders' relatives experienced were awfully ... modern? I don't know if that's the right term, but all of the crimes sounded like something you'd read about in the newspaper *today,* and not, for instance, 100+ years ago (as is suggested by the date on the tombstone at the beginning, if I remember correctly)
I have to admit, though, that the Adrien Brody thing caught me by surprise. That was interesting, though it wasn't very tidy. Why the hell would the elders put a costume in the 'quiet' room in the first place? Why put an extra one anywhere? Was Adrien Brody the only one that got put in that room?
I'm glad that MNS didn't try to get *too* clever with what was going on with respect to the revelations. There are some interesting details left unaswered at the end, like the exact circumstances under which the elders formed the village, and the broader questions of wheter or not crime has to happen, etc.
I thought Unbreakable was a comic-book masterpiece, but, like you said, I'm more in love with Shyamalan than his movies. It's all in the pacing. I think he takes a lot of the material too seriously, and the movies can really plod at times (okay, he's brooding. I get it. Let's move on), but it's so refreshing that a director still believes that there are people out there who can actually sit still and shut up for two hours without watching something blow up.
Also like you said, the movie is marketed very inappropriately. Sure, marketing it as a horror movie might bring in some extra people (see: dates), but that just means that the general mood in the audience will (and did) occasionally disrupt the experience of the movie for those who actually know what they got themselves into.
--Mike Sheffler
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