Signs | ||||||
directed by M. Night Shyamalan | ||||||
written by M. Night Shyamalan | ||||||
David Newbert
Shyamalan has a fondness for making realistic versions of genre tales that have been borderline tacky when we've encountered them
before. The Sixth Sense was a simple ghost story in its outline, and it owes something to the memoirs of psychics trying to cadge
a few dollars off the weak and gullible; Unbreakable was a comic book adventure with the burnish of realism (and is absolutely brilliant
in my view -- something better than mere entertainment). M. Night Shyamalan dares to explore these themes seriously, and it's equally daring to ask
audiences to share the sober acceptance of the possibility without smirking. Now that was a small leap
in The Sixth Sense; Unbreakable and Signs go farther out. In the case of Signs, way out.
Graham Hess is a lapsed minister in rural Pennsylvania. His wife has died and he's raising his two young kids on the family farm with the
help of his younger brother, a former minor league baseball star. Overnight, crop circles have appeared in Hess' cornfield. At night, a
shadowy figure leaps from the house roof into the darkness. And on television, strange lights appear in the skies above major world
cities. And more of those crop circles have simultaneously appeared everywhere on Earth. What is happening? Why do birds seem to fly into
things that aren't to be seen? Are we under attack? And then the horrific video from a child's birthday party removes all doubt...
This film's tones strike a perfect melody. The combination of humor and tension, the tortuous, incremental approach to escalating the
plot, the claustrophobic, microscoped perspective on a global catastrophe, and the almost palpable sense of the surreal -- it all
works. This film is a perfect example of the "pure cinema" that Hitchcock practiced, and a heart-felt drama besides.
Tak Fujimoto's camera work is impressive. The opening shot of the family's backyard doesn't look like it was shot through a window, until
the camera pulls back and the natural imperfections of the glass wobble your vision -- then the camera rests, and the landscape looks
sane again. As an accessible and direct metaphor for the themes of the story, this shot lays the carpet for our entrance; our faith that
things are as they appear, then that the literal (and cynical) acceptance of fact, cannot be trusted. So many of the film's shots are
visual emblems of mystery: a deep and rustling cornfield; those creepy crop circles; bordered views through a window to the
outside -- either a literal window or the television screen; the shadows from under a pantry door; the way beams from flashlights only
carve parts of the darkness; the grainy footage of that child's birthday party (amazing scene!): all are validations of how hard it
is to see the complete picture. We can imagine a bigger view, but to accept it as truth we have to take it on faith. And thereby one
of Shyamalan's main themes is emphasized by the images we see. This is one of the underlying themes of most contemporary SF, that the
world is stranger than you know, but here it is allied with a faith in what could be called God's plan. If a war of the worlds has
truly begun, will our faith save us?
M. Night Shyamalan's direction is adept and careful, and his talent for working with children is impressive. Rory Culkin and Abigail Breslin are
endearing, intelligent and dramatic without being hokey, and even lovable without being saccharine. Mel Gibson and Joaquin Phoenix are excellent,
providing the grounding of character that a story like this needs. No mugging, no hamming. I found it intensely moving when Graham (Mel Gibson)
makes his family their favorite meals, knowing in effect it could be their last together, and his silent fear turns to anger when they
don't enjoy themselves. The emotions were honest and never in danger of going over the top.
In the middle of the film, Gibson gives a keynote speech about coincidence, and the suggestion that luck is the miracle you never
notice. It allows for a grace that orders our lives without being preachy. It also suggests that the gods can be cruel or kind in their
own fashion, with human interpretation being a matter of our comparatively small perspective. It helps explain why a story about the
end of the world takes place on a small farm, and is another example of how what goes on beyond our borders is a mystery to us.
The ending, where the Hess family decides to stay and defend themselves inside the farmhouse, risks losing the audience with
interpretive issues regarding the meaning of what happens, but no one stops sweating when the aliens try to force their way in.
There are a lot of films yet to go this year. But part of me
will still be in the basement of the house, in the dark, listening to the aliens arrive.
David Newbert worked for public and university libraries for several years before joining the college book trade. He lives in New Mexico, where the aliens landed. |
If you find any errors, typos or other stuff worth mentioning,
please send it to editor@sfsite.com.
Copyright © 1996-2014 SF Site All Rights Reserved Worldwide