The Village
Sep. 3rd, 2004 08:24 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
coalescentThe Village isn't M Night Shyamalan's best film, but I think it's still probably a good film, and it's certainly an interesting one.
It's the 1800s and the village is surrounded by woods, woods filled with monsters that keep them cut off from the surrounding towns. A simple premise, but for the first forty-five minutes or so the film felt uncertain. At first glance it is quite different to Shyalaman's previous films: a period rather than modern-day setting, the supernatural front and centre rather than hiding at the edges of the story, and a much larger than usual cast. And where previous films have started with a character and built a story around them, this one starts more with a place. I suspect these differences are the reason that Shyamalan doesn't seem as confident as usual whilst he's arranging his gamepieces. Normally I love his stagey, long-take direction, but in this film he has to keep shifting between sets of characters, and as a result takes a while to build any sort of atmosphere.
I found that it came together when he started to overturn the assumptions he'd been building. I'd say this happens around about the time of the second warning--or maybe shortly afterwards, when Lucius is stabbed and the true nature of the village becomes clear. From the moment the Elders talk about whether 'anything can be done' we know the village is not what it seems; by the time Ivy is sent to the towns to fetch medicine, we know more-or-less what she's going to find. It's a secret that we know, but don't yet understand, which is territory with which Shyamalan seems much more comfortable.
And this is why I have trouble describing the ending as a twist, despite the fact that everyone else does. To me, the fact that the Ivy climbs over a fence into the present is not a revelation, it's a confirmation. I think we're meant to know what's going on. In fact, I don't think the second half of the film makes sense unless Shyamalan expects us to have worked that much out; there's too much dialogue that's not open to any other interpretation, and too many actions that don't make sense unless the time period is what the Elders are hiding. The nature of the village is a twist, sure, but it comes half-way through, not at the end.
It sets up an interesting situation, as well, because by the end of the film we have a story that--against all the expectations you might have of Shyamalan--is not at all fantastic. Indeed, if anything the film criticises superstition, and the use of such as a false basis for building a society. In that, it's the yin to the yang of Signs; a story arguing for rationality, as a counter to the previous film's religious conviction.
Still, despite my sympathies with the theme, and despite a truly great performance from Bryce Dallas Howard, there are some notable weaknesses in the story, in addition to the directorial uncertainty I mentioned above. Sending a blind woman into the woods to get medicine is a prime case of 'nice image, shame about the logic', for instance, and Noel's madness is a slightly cheap explanation for why he dresses up in a monster suit and skins rabbits.
That said, I'm looking forward to more of Shyamalan's work. There was an interview in the Sunday Times a couple of weeks back that said his next project was an adaptation of Life of Pi and in all honesty, I can't think of anyone better-suited to the job.
It's the 1800s and the village is surrounded by woods, woods filled with monsters that keep them cut off from the surrounding towns. A simple premise, but for the first forty-five minutes or so the film felt uncertain. At first glance it is quite different to Shyalaman's previous films: a period rather than modern-day setting, the supernatural front and centre rather than hiding at the edges of the story, and a much larger than usual cast. And where previous films have started with a character and built a story around them, this one starts more with a place. I suspect these differences are the reason that Shyamalan doesn't seem as confident as usual whilst he's arranging his gamepieces. Normally I love his stagey, long-take direction, but in this film he has to keep shifting between sets of characters, and as a result takes a while to build any sort of atmosphere.
I found that it came together when he started to overturn the assumptions he'd been building. I'd say this happens around about the time of the second warning--or maybe shortly afterwards, when Lucius is stabbed and the true nature of the village becomes clear. From the moment the Elders talk about whether 'anything can be done' we know the village is not what it seems; by the time Ivy is sent to the towns to fetch medicine, we know more-or-less what she's going to find. It's a secret that we know, but don't yet understand, which is territory with which Shyamalan seems much more comfortable.
And this is why I have trouble describing the ending as a twist, despite the fact that everyone else does. To me, the fact that the Ivy climbs over a fence into the present is not a revelation, it's a confirmation. I think we're meant to know what's going on. In fact, I don't think the second half of the film makes sense unless Shyamalan expects us to have worked that much out; there's too much dialogue that's not open to any other interpretation, and too many actions that don't make sense unless the time period is what the Elders are hiding. The nature of the village is a twist, sure, but it comes half-way through, not at the end.
It sets up an interesting situation, as well, because by the end of the film we have a story that--against all the expectations you might have of Shyamalan--is not at all fantastic. Indeed, if anything the film criticises superstition, and the use of such as a false basis for building a society. In that, it's the yin to the yang of Signs; a story arguing for rationality, as a counter to the previous film's religious conviction.
Still, despite my sympathies with the theme, and despite a truly great performance from Bryce Dallas Howard, there are some notable weaknesses in the story, in addition to the directorial uncertainty I mentioned above. Sending a blind woman into the woods to get medicine is a prime case of 'nice image, shame about the logic', for instance, and Noel's madness is a slightly cheap explanation for why he dresses up in a monster suit and skins rabbits.
That said, I'm looking forward to more of Shyamalan's work. There was an interview in the Sunday Times a couple of weeks back that said his next project was an adaptation of Life of Pi and in all honesty, I can't think of anyone better-suited to the job.
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no subject
Date: 2004-09-03 01:20 am (UTC)The other thing is that the plot doesn't really make sense. I completely agree about the whole "blind woman in the woods" scenario, but the whole thing didn't seem to make sense to me; I just don't believe it would be possible to set up a secret isolated community in a wood in America. Nice idea, shame about the logic.
no subject
Date: 2004-09-03 01:32 am (UTC)Hmm. Possibly. I think that's partly down to the fact that it's less atmospheric than, say, Unbreakable. With that film, I almost don't want to think; I'm happy to get lost in the beauty of the thing. This is more variable--some fantastic set-pieces, but also occasionally quite mundane.
I just don't believe it would be possible to set up a secret isolated community in a wood in America
Interestingly enough, that bit didn't bother me; or at least, I found it no harder to suspend my disbelief for that than for aliens or superheroes or ghosts. :)
no subject
Date: 2004-09-03 01:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-09-03 02:00 pm (UTC)if anything the film criticises superstition, and the use of such as a false basis for building a society. In that, it's the yin to the yang of Signs; a story arguing for rationality, as a counter to the previous film's religious conviction.
But here I thought the opposite to you - I thought that it was too much like Signs. That is, he wasn't critical enough of the elders, and we were (I thought) expected to see the end as a happy resolution, and 'your son's death will enable us to continue the deception' as good coming out of evil. In fact I think we were supposed to think that Noah's insanity and Ivy's blindness were somehow retrospectively justified (like the asthma in Signs).
But if I had taken it like you, I would have liked it more. A sourer more pessimistic ending would have been more to my taste.
no subject
Date: 2004-09-04 03:43 am (UTC)Yeah, someone else (WINOLJ) was saying this to me, as well. My position is that since the people in the village are self-selected, pretty much by definition none of them are going to argue the other side of the case too strongly, and it would have been a bit cheap to have one (or more) of them suddenly have a change of heart. So it's not specifically written to be critical, but I think the villagers end up damning themselves by their actions. Perhaps it would be more accurate to have said that where I felt Signs forced an interpretation on us, I think this one allows us to make up our own mind.