M. Night Shyamalan's "The Village"

I'm sure he felt he was in a bit of a catch 22 situation. Because of 6th Sense and Unbreakable, he was known specifically for the "twist ending" and audiences go in expecting it and looking for it. So he didn't pepper it with hints the way he did with 6th Sense. I'm not sure it would have worked better had he put in a few giveaways. It might have been more popular, or people would have figured it all out early and been bored. I like the movie the way it is, but I agree that that the atmosphere (and Bryce Dallas Howard's great performance) are the best thing about it and the first 2/3 of the movie is more enjoyable. The ending can't quite live up to the setup.

 

I think there are some clues, just not as obvious as the one's in 6th sense, because as you say, audiences were looking for a twist.

1. Sigourney Weaver in a leadership position, and making an announcement to the community, seemed very odd for the 19th century.
2. That the "towns" had medicine that would help with a knife wound. There was no such thing in the 1800s.
3. The English idiom breaks down a bit, whenever one of the elders talks about their past (when Sigourney Weaver tells what happens to her husband, when August talks to himself while Lucius brings him wood, and when the woman tells Ivy about her sister dying)

 

Good points. I haven't seen it in quite some time. I do see its on Cinemax later this week, so I'm gonna DVR it. I'm looking forward to seeing it again.

 

It's been so long since I've seen it that I didn't even remember that Sigourney Weaver is in it.

 

I thought it was an enormous cheat that even when the lead characters were alone and isolated in a closet or something, they continued the old-fashioned speech and never said, "hey, what the hell are we gonna do? The kids are getting suspicious!" And if this were really happening, they wouldn't be able to keep up the act 24/7.

The stupidest thing about the core concept is the belief that if they're isolated AND act like it's the 1860s, they'll be able to survive and keep out the modern world from ever hurting them. It would've made more sense to just accept it's the modern world and then build a big wall and pay for heavy-duty guards to keep out the dangers of the real world. Also, critics other than me pointed out that you can't stop jet planes from flying overhead. Even if they didn't, contrails and all that stuff would occasionally be visible in the sky. It's a fanciful concept that doesn't hold up at all. Several reviews at the time said that audiences were snickering and booing when the dramatic "secret" was revealed, and the blind girl managed to (briefly) get outside to civilization. I already knew the ending when I saw the film on home video, but even for me I could see this was a real "WTF" moment.

I loved the twist endings of Sixth Sense and Unbreakable, and I even enjoyed Signs (though it has a couple of plot holes you could drive trucks through). The rest of Shyamalan's films kinds leave me cold.

 

But then, these are people who don't know anything about post-19th century technology. How would a person who's never heard of an airplane interpret a contrail, or the sound of an engine?

 

I don't think that is an enormous cheat. We don't know how long they've been there, but if they've chosen to live that way, it seems they would just get used to speaking in that manner and forget about modern phrases like "my bad" or "what's the 411?"

Isn't it revealed they specifically chose a place that is in the middle of a no-fly zone or restricted air space, so no planes go overhead? I don't know if such places really exist in isolated areas, but that was the explanation.

 

The place is labelled a "nature preserve" to the outside world, and government officials were bought off to make it a no-fly zone. Mr. Walker's father was a billionaire.

I took the elders never breaking the 19th century speech as part of their mental problems. They had this idea that the 1800s were some utopia, and by building a civilization around that culture, they could avoid the tragedy they all suffered in modern times. These people are messed up.

 

The first half is pretty good suspense-wise, but the twist is pretty stupid. It is, at least, not as profoundly stupid as The Happening. I got through all of 20 minutes of that.

I've never seen Lady In The Water, but I have a perverse curiosity about it because it sounds like SUCH a work of hubris that it seems it must be seen to be disbelieved.

 

I am curious why many find the twist in The Village as stupid. People in the past have set up Utopias, and wished for true isolation. The leader of this group was a billionaire, with the means to make it happen.

The Lady in the Water is the biggest fall in quality I have ever seen for a filmmaker. I love M. Night's first 4 films. Lady in the Water is as bad as you have heard. I only defend the first four movies. Although The Visit got decent reviews (I haven't seen it yet).

 

If they had been living that way, off the grid, for decades, they would have been totally immersed into 19th Century life. That was the idea, wasn't it? It was their way of life. They wouldn't have the desire to break with 19th Century customs in private including the type of language they use. We see this kind of thing in The Americans in which the male and female leads completely immerse themselves into American culture to the point that they don't even speak Russian to one another when they are alone together. It makes perfect sense. I will have to revisit this movie soon so that I'm a little more familiar with the details. I haven't seen it since I saw it in the theater. I remember the reveal and not much else.

 

Maybe I'm misunderstanding your comment.... but the "Village" in the story hadn't been operating since the 19th century. It's established during the twist/reveal near the end that the "Village" was formed in the late 1970's, thus the people living there would know all about airplanes and such.

 

Simply too obvious

 

I'm not convinced hundreds of people living in one place (at least the adults) would be able to pull off permanently speaking like it was 160 years ago.

Yes, but again: there are no places that an aircraft will never fly over, especially government aircraft. It's a plot contrivance you have to go with in order to accept the story. The other huge contrivance is that the central character -- the girl who goes for help -- is blind, so she never actually sees and understands the outside world that she briefly visits. Very, very, very contrived, calculated, and phony. As Roger Ebert called it in 2004:

"The Village" is a colossal miscalculation, a movie based on a premise that cannot support it, a premise so transparent it would be laughable were the movie not so deadly solemn. It's a flimsy excuse for a plot, with characters who move below the one-dimensional and enter Flatland.

Eventually the secret of Those, etc., is revealed. To call it an anticlimax would be an insult not only to climaxes but to prefixes. It's a crummy secret, about one step up the ladder of narrative originality from It Was All a Dream. It's so witless, in fact, that when we do discover the secret, we want to rewind the film so we don't know the secret anymore.

And then keep on rewinding, and rewinding, until we're back at the beginning, and can get up from our seats and walk backward out of the theater and go down the up escalator and watch the money spring from the cash register into our pockets.

The Village Movie Review & Film Summary (2004) | Roger Ebert »

But again, it's a far better film than Lady in the Water, which is dumbfoundingly awful beyond belief. That's a very, very hard movie to watch. And I think Shyamalan can be a talented man who has written and directed some fine films. Just not the last few.

 

From a post of mine examining the growth of MNS's "vision" in "The Happening" thread that still rings true:

"Sixth Sense = Fantasy premise mixed with realistic characters and heavy moralizing with the lead character overcoming his emotional trauma. Plus a surprise ending.

Unbreakable = Fantasy premise mixed with realistic characters and heavy moralizing with the lead character overcoming his emotional trauma. Plus a surprise ending.

Signs = Fantasy premise mixed with realistic characters and heavy moralizing with the lead character overcoming his emotional trauma. Plus a surprise ending.

The Village = Fantasy premise mixed with realistic characters and heavy moralizing with the lead character overcoming her emotional trauma. Plus a surprise ending.

The Lady in the Water = Fantasy premise mixed with stereotypical characters and heavy moralizing with the lead character overcoming his emotional trauma. Plus a surprise ending.

The Happening = Silliest premise of all (still fantasy) lamest characters (all underdeveloped) and not much of a surprise ending. I guess The Happening really does break the streak and should be acknowledged as something of a different direction from a director / writer who clearly is a one trick pony.

I will acknowledge that "The Last Airbender" continues his move away from his formula (as was The Happening), but to what end?"

 

Plot holes are Shyamalan's trademark. I don't know how even The Sixth Sense manages to still be fairly well regarded, since IMHO the reveal opens up so many plot holes the movie pretty much collapses.

 

The young people in the village don't know that -- they don't know anything about modern life. So they're not gonna go, "hey, there was an airplane up there!" if they see a jet trail.

 

Yep, exactly. The adults are aware of the ruse. It's the younger generation that have no idea of modern life.

 

Oh okay, I see what you were saying. Luckily, that shouldn't ever happen in the context of the story, since the wildlife preserve that the village was located in had been designated a no-fly zone.

 

I'm failing to see the "giant plot holes" in the first 4 films.

I have noticed M. Night himself is the object of scorn. I have yet to figure out why. Why does his director generate such strong feelings?

 

I've watched Unbreakable numerous times, but The Sixth Sense only once. I had read a review of the latter film that contained a spoiler, so when I went in I knew the twist. I thought it held up fairly well, but for whatever reason I've never had the desire to go back and watch it again. Maybe because, even though it's well made and the performances are excellent, the film hangs on that twist?

The core of Shyamalan's storytelling is the pre-adolescent campfire story, told with breathless, wide-eyed wonder, that's meant to get under your skin. Sixth Sense and Unbreakable suggested he could turn that perspective into something that resonates with adults. Subsequent films indicate that he can't.

 

Because he is a one-trick auteur who hasn't grown professionally since his first wide release movie. Also his heavy-handed moralizing is tiresome and predictable. I know others love his style and I concede he knows how to get good performances from his actors and can effectively film a great looking picture.

 

Go find the stories about the drama around making The Lady In The Water. There's a whole book on it, in fact: https://www.amazon.com/Man-Who-Hear...UTF8&qid=1468861186&sr=1-5&keywords=shyamalan

 

Indeed. Their parents could easily have told them "it's a sign from God/the Devil/those of whom we do not speak". I don't feel that everything needs to be spelled out. The audience can make some assumptions from reasoning out information from within the context of the film.

 

I've long thought of him as a purveyor of pretentious shaggy-dog stories for the Cineplex crowd - they're generally longer and more portentous than they need to be in order to get to that twist ending. Too bad there aren't anthology shows like The Twilight Zone around anymore; such a compact format might've played to his style more than the 90+ minute runtime of movies.