kitty
08-02-2004, 12:33 PM
Beyond the Boundaries of the Village
It's pretty much official -- no matter how much M. Night Shyamalan's name can sell a movie, he's a flash in the pan filmmaker. His first, the Sixth Sense, was also his best; it's all been downhill from here.
Although Shyamalan is one of the more clever screenplay writers of our time, my appreciation of his films is quickly becoming academic at best. While Sixth Sense delivered some chilling scares that left me creeped out for days afterwards, a la Ring, Unbreakable was broken by a cool premise with a less than scary payload. Signs, too, wasn't quite freaky as it was contemplative, and now, with The Village, Shyamalan has distinguished himself as more philosopher than director.
The Village focusses on a pilgrim era village somewhere in Pennsylvania, bordered on all fronts by a mysterious woods inhabited by terrifying creatures. As described in the trailer, these creatures and the humans of the village have an uneasy truce, and the village has developed a culture around superstitious rites and rituals that maintain the safety of their boundaries. Enter Lucius Hunt (Joaquin Phoenix), the stoic son of Alice Hunt (Sigourney Weaver), one of the village elders. The film introduces Lucius as an upstanding man who wants to journey to the towns beyond the woods to retrieve medicine and supplies, only to be denied passage through the forest by the council of elders, headed by Edward Walker (William Hurt). Walker's blind daughter, Ivy (played by newcomer Bryce Dallas Howard), plays Lucius' tomboyish love interest and Noah Percy (Adrien Brody) is their mentally challenged, childlike friend.
Unfortunately, though I'm sure the premise of the Village seemed quite sound on paper, it's hard to keep an audience's attention long enough in a setting where everything happens at its own slow, methodical pace. Shyamalan spends a good thirty minutes of his film establishing the mood of his village, and painting a picture of the citizens and their surroundings, but the stilted dialogue and slow-paced action fails to interest the average moviegoer, who will have a hard enough time identifying with such a markedly different non-urban community and lifestyle. Unlike in the Sixth Sense or Signs, the suspense factor is frankly not terribly suspenseful -- Shyamalan's bag of tricks for the first half of the film consist primarily of skinned animals, and their appearance simply isn't that terrifying.
As the story progresses, even the more frightening scenes seem forced and there just aren't as many heart-racing moments as one would've expected. The Shymalan signature twists aren't hidden very well and are deduced long before they are unveiled.
What can be appreciated in the Village is an academic understanding of what Shyamalan was trying to convey with this film. The story is quite timely and the most introspective of his piece, and the socially critical message of the movie stuck with me much more than the mechanisms that Shyamalan used to try and turn his moral into a horror film. As a screenplay, the amount of time and thought Shyamalan put into this script is evident, his use of colours, costumes, and camerawork were superb, but the fatal flaw is the setting he chose, which simply isn't interesting.
The casting of the Village was also spot-on; I was hard-pressed to find a single performance that didn't deliver it's character beautifully. Howard proves to be a charming and powerful actress who can, surprisingly, carry the film (the film focusses on her story despite Joaquin Phoenix's star power that was rather shamelessly exploited in the advertising campaign). The role of Lucius Hunt seems to have been written for Phoenix, and though he has very little dialogue, he is able to convey a bevvy of emotions and reactions through the most subtle of facial expressions and movements. Hurt and Weaver, as well as the rest of the secondary cast members round out the cast splendidly, but it was Brody's performance that truly shone. Disappointed not only by his performance in the Pianist but his behaviour at the Academy Awards, I had always thought of Brody as little more than a rat-nosed punk who had been highly over-appreciated; this film proved me wrong. Brody does indeed have talent, and despite the fact that he has gone on record as saying that he wasn't terribly thrilled about following his Oscar-winning performance with this role, when he puts effort into a part, he is a talented actor; he just needs to work on that sexual molestation problem.
As one of the most prominent Asian American directors in Hollywood, Shymalan has done well for himself -- unfortunately, he must realize that the average moviegoing audience isn't interested in his social criticism. The fanbase that he has built is looking for a bang-for-your-buck thrill ride, and as of yet, Shyamalan hasn't proven that the success of the Sixth Sense was anything more than accidental. Unfortunately, just because of what the scope of what the Village tried to be, this film just isn't it.
It's pretty much official -- no matter how much M. Night Shyamalan's name can sell a movie, he's a flash in the pan filmmaker. His first, the Sixth Sense, was also his best; it's all been downhill from here.
Although Shyamalan is one of the more clever screenplay writers of our time, my appreciation of his films is quickly becoming academic at best. While Sixth Sense delivered some chilling scares that left me creeped out for days afterwards, a la Ring, Unbreakable was broken by a cool premise with a less than scary payload. Signs, too, wasn't quite freaky as it was contemplative, and now, with The Village, Shyamalan has distinguished himself as more philosopher than director.
The Village focusses on a pilgrim era village somewhere in Pennsylvania, bordered on all fronts by a mysterious woods inhabited by terrifying creatures. As described in the trailer, these creatures and the humans of the village have an uneasy truce, and the village has developed a culture around superstitious rites and rituals that maintain the safety of their boundaries. Enter Lucius Hunt (Joaquin Phoenix), the stoic son of Alice Hunt (Sigourney Weaver), one of the village elders. The film introduces Lucius as an upstanding man who wants to journey to the towns beyond the woods to retrieve medicine and supplies, only to be denied passage through the forest by the council of elders, headed by Edward Walker (William Hurt). Walker's blind daughter, Ivy (played by newcomer Bryce Dallas Howard), plays Lucius' tomboyish love interest and Noah Percy (Adrien Brody) is their mentally challenged, childlike friend.
Unfortunately, though I'm sure the premise of the Village seemed quite sound on paper, it's hard to keep an audience's attention long enough in a setting where everything happens at its own slow, methodical pace. Shyamalan spends a good thirty minutes of his film establishing the mood of his village, and painting a picture of the citizens and their surroundings, but the stilted dialogue and slow-paced action fails to interest the average moviegoer, who will have a hard enough time identifying with such a markedly different non-urban community and lifestyle. Unlike in the Sixth Sense or Signs, the suspense factor is frankly not terribly suspenseful -- Shyamalan's bag of tricks for the first half of the film consist primarily of skinned animals, and their appearance simply isn't that terrifying.
As the story progresses, even the more frightening scenes seem forced and there just aren't as many heart-racing moments as one would've expected. The Shymalan signature twists aren't hidden very well and are deduced long before they are unveiled.
What can be appreciated in the Village is an academic understanding of what Shyamalan was trying to convey with this film. The story is quite timely and the most introspective of his piece, and the socially critical message of the movie stuck with me much more than the mechanisms that Shyamalan used to try and turn his moral into a horror film. As a screenplay, the amount of time and thought Shyamalan put into this script is evident, his use of colours, costumes, and camerawork were superb, but the fatal flaw is the setting he chose, which simply isn't interesting.
The casting of the Village was also spot-on; I was hard-pressed to find a single performance that didn't deliver it's character beautifully. Howard proves to be a charming and powerful actress who can, surprisingly, carry the film (the film focusses on her story despite Joaquin Phoenix's star power that was rather shamelessly exploited in the advertising campaign). The role of Lucius Hunt seems to have been written for Phoenix, and though he has very little dialogue, he is able to convey a bevvy of emotions and reactions through the most subtle of facial expressions and movements. Hurt and Weaver, as well as the rest of the secondary cast members round out the cast splendidly, but it was Brody's performance that truly shone. Disappointed not only by his performance in the Pianist but his behaviour at the Academy Awards, I had always thought of Brody as little more than a rat-nosed punk who had been highly over-appreciated; this film proved me wrong. Brody does indeed have talent, and despite the fact that he has gone on record as saying that he wasn't terribly thrilled about following his Oscar-winning performance with this role, when he puts effort into a part, he is a talented actor; he just needs to work on that sexual molestation problem.
As one of the most prominent Asian American directors in Hollywood, Shymalan has done well for himself -- unfortunately, he must realize that the average moviegoing audience isn't interested in his social criticism. The fanbase that he has built is looking for a bang-for-your-buck thrill ride, and as of yet, Shyamalan hasn't proven that the success of the Sixth Sense was anything more than accidental. Unfortunately, just because of what the scope of what the Village tried to be, this film just isn't it.