Buddha babble on Real Life Fiction

 

 

 

Do you see dead people? Or ladies in the water? Or hydrophobic aliens in the bushes? Or those who we do not speak of in the woods?

Well neither does M. Night Shyamalan but he does tell the most intriguingly twisted stories about them.

 

 

 

M. Night Shaymalan (Shah-Mah-Lan) or Manoj Nelliyattu Shyamalan made a big splash with the cult hit “The Sixth Sense” in 1999 and many of his succeeding films were not exactly box-office crowd drawers or certified award winners but they were distinctive enough to spawn spoof after spoof. He’s developed a little cheese in the dialogue since “The Sixth Sense” but the scriptwriting is still top-notch, no matter what those foolish American critics say.

 

 

What’s fascinating about him is that no matter how obscure or hackneyed the subject matter is (I mean, ghosts and aliens again?!), the twist allows a fresh perspective into what is commonly and usually old material (i.e., it gets cold when spirits linger and saunter).

“The Sixth Sense” was everyone’s Shyamalan favourite with its final plot twist in a genre that never grows old. So big a hit was “The Sixth Sense” that it spawned not just spoofs but opened the otherworldly door for other ghost story films like it- from “Dark Water” to “Ju-on” to “Shutter”.

Before comic superheroes were made cool again with CGI and SFX, there was the Sentinel and Mr. Glass in “Unbreakable” in as realistic a portrayal you can get. I liked “Unbreakable” because Shyamalan showed how fantastic superheroes and gray reality can make sense simultaneously without all the Hancock blitzy suspension of disbelief.

With “Signs”, normally I’d be pissed just like “Reign of Fire” with Matthew McConaughey and Christian Bale that was a dragon film with one stupid CGI dragon. However, “Signs” was cool BECAUSE it was an alien film with not enough aliens. “Signs” I liked not just because of the casting but because I really loved its perspective on faith and chance; and if you truly understood its premise, then you wouldn’t wait till the plot twist because it will all make sense in the end. And it does.

While I really didn’t like “The Lady in the Water” with all its cast obscurities and plot twists, it was strange enough to make sense that no matter how freakish and odd some people can be (a dude with one enlarged arm or a man who talks from the bathroom married to a gossip monger of a wife), we have pivotal roles to fulfil in saving the world.

I liked “The Village” because of its premise that love can make you do the craziest of things- like loony Noah stabbing a rival to his affections, Ivy Walker blindly braving the woods and the outside world for antiseptic and first aid, the elders ultimately creating a utopia inside a reserve because the real world has become too violently traumatic.

“The world bows down before love in awe.” Not too cheesy, eh?

In “The Happening”, Shyamalan creates a slightly gory story (workers jumping from the roof, men hanging themselves from the trees) of almost environmental significance and scientific fantasy with the revenge of the plants in almost apocalyptic fashion. There was so much morbid shock value in the film as if the film were trying to wake us from our self-destructive ways. In a way, the film is depressing because the happening does not make sense how it happens and in effect kills not just our instinct for survival but also our sense of hope, creating this lingering feeling of morbid dread of when the happening will actually strike.

 

Here are some interesting film details about this largely non-Bollywood director.

Trivial Trademarks

1. He frequently uses Philadelphia (the city where he grew up) as the backdrop in his movies as seen in the films “Wide Awake” (1998), “The Sixth Sense” (1999), “Unbreakable” (2000), “Signs” (2002) and “The Village” (2004).

 

 

2. His films have some sort of twist in the end or surprise ending.

3. Many of his stories involve two ordinary people with extraordinary abilities or events happening to them. One of the characters either has connections to a child or is a child, and the character connected to the child is always having marital difficulties.

4. Shyamalan frequently uses fluttering curtains, such as when Bruce Willis discovers the victimized mother in “Unbreakable” and the passage of changing times in the last shot of “Signs”.

5. His films often use an event from the main character’s past as a major connection to what is happening in the present (the Vincent Gray case in “The Sixth Sense”, the car crash in “Unbreakable”, the death of the wife in “Signs”)

6. Shyamalan playfully makes cameo appearances in his own movies, like Alfred Hitchcock, (one of his favorite directors), and Stephen King.

7. Notice that he frequently employs water as a symbol of death or weakness (the aliens in “Signs” (2002) and David Dunn’s kryptonite in “Unbreakable” (2000) both having the same weakness; in “The Sixth Sense” , Malcolm Crowe’s killer is hiding in a bathroom. In “The Village” , Finton becomes too scared to continue on with Ivy when it begins to rain.)

 

8. Car crashes play pivotal roles in all his films: Cole finally reveals his gift to his mother during a traffic jam in The Sixth Sense” , David "loses" his football abilities in a car accident in “Unbreakable”, and Graham’s wife dies in a bizarre and impliedly gory car wreck in “Signs”, hope dies big-time when Julian’s jeep suicide crashes into a tree alongside his hitchhiking buddies in “The Happening”.

9. Many of his films have an important scene set in a basement:

a. “The Sixth Sense”: Malcolm is in the basement when discovering important plot information like “de profundus clamo ad te domine” and the veracity of Cole’s claims;

b. “Unbreakable”: David discovers his strength in a basement lifting weights and paint cans;

c. “Signs”: The family retreats to the basement when the aliens attack (remember that freaky hand on that freaking wall?).

d. “The Village”: when they are in the cellar (basement) Ivy discovers that Lucius really does care for her.

e. “The Happening”: Elliot and Alma Moore seek refuge from the murderous winds.

10. His films tend to be religiously themed- the challenge of faith in “Signs”, the idea of salvation and sacrifice in “Lady in the Water”, justice and retribution in “The Happening”.

 

11. There is a recurring lengthy, uncut, immovable shot of two people talking in his films. Usually the two characters are standing a distance from the camera.

12. There is a stark use of bright colors, especially red, to signify a clue or crucial item in the movie- the red tent that Cole uses as sanctuary in”The Sixth Sense”, the red color that is the mark of the creatures we do not speak of in “The Village”, the violet cloak of Mr. Glass in “Unbreakable”.

 

 

13. He always works with James Newton Howard for the haunting musical score.

 

14. His films have an eerie quiet effect because he never uses stock sound effects, reminiscent of William Friedkin’s “The Exorcist”. He insists that all foley sounds, ambience, and other audio be originally created.

15. Shyamalan often works with particular actors twice in consecutive movies. For example Bruce Willis in “The Sixth Sense” and “Unbreakable”, both Joaquin Phoenix and Cherry Jones in “Signs” and “The Village”, and Bryce Dallas Howard in “The Village” and “Lady in the Water”.

Shyamalan might strike (especially American) audiences as formulaic and predictable or even obscure, that’s because they don’t really understand the approach he takes with his story. Oblivious to many, there are such wonderful things called metaphors; and it is with these metaphors and representations that the story reaches its heights. Shyamalan works these metaphors adeptly to weave his twists and tales.

 

 

In the end, I really wouldn’t call Shyamalan as a visionary but he certainly is one fine storyteller.