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By
WAYNE KLEIN
Before M. Night Shyamalan
morphed into the Rod Serling of the big screen, he
made very funny and clever short amateur films
imitating his idols. Why do I bring this up?
Because Shyamalan's "The Village" plays like an
extended episode of "The Twilight Zone." You may
figure out the twist before the end, like I did,
but "The Village" remains a suspenseful ride for
its duration. The film did take an unfair
critically drubbing. Perhaps critics felt that
Shyamalan has gone to the same well for a drink
too many times. Hey, Hitchcock did it, as did
Spielberg and even Truffaut. Like Rod Serling's
unique voice as a writer, Shyamalan's suspense
films have a certain style and feel all their own.
While Shyamalan may have borrowed his "gimmicks"
from others, he stole from the best and with "The
Village" makes these tricks his own.
Set in an isolated, small rural town with homes
straight out of the early 19th century, the people
live in a village surrounded by woods where
mythical beasts live. The townspeople and the
creatures developed an alliance early on; the
people of the village will never venture into the
woods and, in turn, the creatures will remain in
the woods. As long as this balance exists, the two
can peacefully co-exist. Things change with the
death of a little boy. When the death occurs
Lucius Hunt (Joaquin Phoenix) offers to brave the
woods and go to the nearest town for vitally
needed medicines. Ivy Hunt (the marvelous Bryce
Dallas Howard, who gives a wonderful performance)
is the only other person in the town who, like
Lucius, seems without fear. Ivy's blindness also
gives her a unique insight. The elders of the
town, including Edward Walker (William Hurt),
August Nicholson (Brendan Gleeson) and Alice Hunt
(Sigourney Weaver) all seem against the idea of
leaving the village particularly when the
creatures start showing up at night. It seems as
if their fragile truce and existence will be
coming to an end.
A well-constructed suspense thriller, "The
Village" shares much in common with Shyamalan's
other thrillers, "The Sixth Sense," "Unbreakable"
and "Signs." Although the formula at the heart of
his films might be wearing a bit thin for critics,
filmgoers will enjoy the film for the atmospheric
world that Shyamalan dreams up. The suspenseful
pacing, twists and turns and strong performances
will make "The Village" memorable. It's a
worthwhile film even if a bit predictable by the
conclusion. I have to give Shyamalan credit: he
reveals a key plot point two-thirds through the
movie, not unlike Hitchcock did with his classic
film, "Vertigo." It takes tremendous
self-confidence and as the plot finally begins to
take shape, audiences will appreciate it (although
some will be mad just as they were at Hitchcock
when he made his classic film).
The DVD comes with a whole host of special
features including deleted scenes, a production
photo gallery, Bryce Dallas Howard reading from
the diary she kept on set during production and a
documentary (broken down into a number of smaller
"featurettes") called "Deconstructing The Village"
that takes the viewer step-by-step through the
production of the film. We learn, for example, why
an early version of the creatures (a.k.a. "Those
We Don't Speak Of") was abandoned as an onset
effect. Shyamalan also shares some of his ideas on
what makes a movie suspenseful and the cast
discusses the symbolism of "The Village" and
"Those That We Don't Speak Of." Shyamalan, like a
lot of film directors (most notably Steven
Spielberg) didn't want to do a commentary track
perhaps fearing that it might rob the film of its
mystique. It's a pity as his working methods
during production and abandoned early concepts
would have been particularly interesting and
wouldn't have hurt the film at all. |
