*** (out of ****)
Starring Joaquin Phoenix, Bryce Dallas Howard, Adrien Brody, Sigourney Weaver, William Hurt, and Brendan Gleeson
Directed & written by M. Night Shyamalan
2004
108 min PG13
“Saturday Night Live” once had this sketch called “Tales of Irony!” which showed us snippets of movies that were intended to have surprise endings. For example, one featured two people in a spaceship, carrying all that was left of humanity to start anew on a distant world. “There’s the new planet, Adam!” exclaims one of the astronauts, whose name is Eve. “There it is—Earth!” A huge, overwrought orchestra chimes in for a moment. Then the second astronaut says “no, Earth is the planet we’re leaving, and my name isn’t Adam, it’s Roger.”
“The Village” is kind of like that. It has what’s supposed to be a surprise ending, but I can’t decide if it’s clever or ridiculous. Maybe I’ll split the difference and call it a ridiculous ending used to make a clever point, about how the powers-that-be control our lives through fear.
Narratively, “The Village” is like a long-lost “Twilight Zone” script or a novel from the days of “Lord of the Flies” that we’ve never heard of before, combined with director-writer M. Night Shyamalan’s (“Signs,” “Unbreakable,” “The Sixth Sense”) ability to make everyday life and spaces unsettling and full of dread. In some ways, “The Village” is a masterpiece. It reduces suspense to its purest possible form: forty minutes of convincing actors telling us convincingly “don’t go into the woods!” and then when someone finally, inevitably goes into the woods, it’s shot real creepy. Hooray for Roger Deakins, who also did “The Man Who Wasn’t There.”
Shyamalan goes beyond that, into a kind of perfection of psychological terror that I can’t discuss without ruining things. I saw through the movie pretty early on, in a simple couple of steps, because I’ve watched a whole lot of “The Twilight Zone” and “Dr. Who” and, let’s face it, I’m just so much smarter than you it’s not even funny. The idea that the conclusion is obvious to everyone who saw the film will never, ever cross my mind. But Shyamalan is such a director that “The Village’s” overwhelming sense of dread still got to me. It’s a day later and I’m only now shaking its sense of vague unease. This a haunting movie…or maybe that’s more because of the lives wasted in it…
On the other hand, “The Village” is a well-crafted movie with what many will call a stupid, stupid pay-off, with no purpose to it besides tricking us with that pay-off. Some viewers will find the ending of “The Village” to be immensely hokey and there’s really not much you can do to argue with them. The issue may be one of tone: we forgive “Lord of the Flies” for “Symbolism!” because it’s acquired some camp value over the years, and “The Twilight Zone” may have always had it. But Shyamalan plays “The Village” straight—somber, gloomy, perhaps too much so—and maybe that’s the only way it could be played. Still, set-up and pay-off may not connect well for everybody.
Covington Woods is an idyllic, 1890s village in the middle of a vast and foreboding forest. Everyone is happy, in a dreary kind of way, and they spend their days being wholesome, eating stiff bread, avoiding contractions, and ominously alluding to Those We Do Not Speak Of. The bargain that has been struck between the Old Testament-style town elders and the creatures of the woods (Those We Do Not Speak Of) is that the villagers will never leave the village and the creatures will never leave the woods. This works out for the villagers, who describe “the towns” as sinful, where you’re practically guaranteed to get murdered within a few minutes of entering one. Trouble is, a boy has just died of disease when we enter the movie, and an earnest young man (Joaquin Phoenix) thinks he should be allowed to journey to the nearest town to see how medicine’s come along in the last three decades. Uh-oh. This leads to much discussion of Those We Do Not Speak Of, and every discussion of them is like a thousand knives in my heart because they should be called Those Of Whom We Do Not Speak, because of the whole preposition thing.
Shyamalan sets up the rules and the village itself clearly but not heavy-handedly. Red things attract the monsters, yellow repels them. They are given animal sacrifices periodically to maintain the truce. All this could be done faster, of course, if there was a swish pan away from the action to Shyamalan standing in a black suit, with his hands together, saying “presented for your consideration, a village in the 1890s…” The farm houses and barns of the village are all creaky, overlooking sunny meadows and black woods. Every shot is framed to include enough space for something to jump out—although something seldom does—and there are good, hard shadows in virtually every house. The woods themselves are photographed magnificently, every conglomeration of branches suggestive, every crackle of twigs and leaves terrifying.
All this would be useless if we were not given any personalities upon which to latch, and “The Village” has plenty. You’ll not trick me into saying “The Village People” so stop trying. The elders include William Hurt, Sigourney Weaver, and Brendan Gleeson, who all have that we’re-good-people-but-we’re-hiding-something thing going on. There’s also Phoenix’s blind love interest (Bryce Dallas Howard), and the village idiot (Oscar-winner Adrien Brody, grinnin’ ‘n droolin’) after whom she looks. Their behavior borders on the melodramatic and the mawkish, but that might be kind of the point. Speaking of the point…well, that’s in my spoilers section.
The number of critics and moviegoers who have had enough of director Shyamalan’s “twist at the end” is certainly growing. Suspicion is circulating that he has lost interest in telling a story at all and only wants to outsmart his audience, to say “fooled you, hah!” in the closing minutes. I like “The Village,” but it’s certainly his weakest film and he’d really better change his modus operandi for a while. Maybe I enjoyed the movie because I found it to be more than a surprise ending; for a potential reading of it with spoilers aplenty, click here. Or maybe I was able to enjoy it only because I had it figured out so early, because I’m such a genius. That’s certainly odd praise for a suspense film.
Finished August 2nd, 2004
Copyright © 2004 Friday & Saturday Night
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