Woah...does this film suck...

You bring up some interesting points that I hadn't thought about in the Village - I suppose I never thought more deeply about the story in that one because it was my least favorite of his, and honestly by the time it was over I didn't really care much about the outcome.

But you did say something that I think may hit on what my personal issue is with his scripts, and I'd never really thought about it before:

SPZ said:
Each character had a nuance and a simbolism inherent to them. This happens in all his films.
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Absolutely right.
And because of that his stories wind up feeling more allegorical than anything else - and I've personally never been a fan of 'obvious' allegory.

For the most part, his characters seem to symbolize a specific aspect or trait of the theme that he wants to 'comment' on - and because of that they become very one dimentional to me. They do not come off as fully realized individuals, but just human placeholders for a thinly veiled abstact concept.

For example:
Joaquin Phoenix's character was a simbolism of courage and will towards the unknown.
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And it seems that that sort of singular symbolism is seen in alot of his films, and in many of his characters. This character symbolizes courage, this one symbolizes faith, this once symbolizes love.... which works wonderfully for an allegory - but it simply isn't interesting to me. People are not that pure, we are both courageous and cowardly, self loathing and proud... etc etc. In the end, his characters come across as parts of a personality that come togehter to form a whole - but each on their own simply don't make for interesting characters. They are not human, they are human traits.

The exception to that, for me, was Bruce Willis's character in Unbreakable.
That film seems to be the oddball of the bunch - and that is the one character he's created that genuinely engaged me for some reason.

I really haven't seen these movies in a while, so here are just some small toughts that I could remember.
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Same here - I haven't seen them in quite a while - and most of what I wrote here is off the top of the head and based on my memory of the films....
And, to be fair, most of what I said holds more for Signs and The Village (and possibly LITW, which I haven't seen) - in general it seems that each film has become more allegorical than the last.
Thats how I'm remembering it anyhow.

:)
 
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But can't you get those kind of morales/lessons/tales out of any ol' movie? Hell, you can get them out of pretty much any Adam Sandler or Jim Carrey movie? Just because you can extrapolate ideas and thoughts out of a movie, does it make it a 'thinking' movie? There is no simple answer to that question.

In the end, it is up to the viewer and what they take away with them. Some films may not challenge you (regardless if they are meant to or not) but the example above of the use of fear in The Village is perfect. While to some people may not further explore that part of the film and simply thinks it stops there, others may go on to explore and look for other means of control.

I am sure most movies can make anyone think if they look for something. Here are some of the questions I ask when trying to classify a movie as a thinking film:

Did it challenge me or my views?
Do I think the film/director purposely asked me questions or challenged me?
Are there things that I as the viewer need or want to solve/resolve?
Did it present a view/idea/thought that is generally not common?
And so on...
 
When we speak of films being good on many levels, I usually take it to mean in terms of theme and plot and ideas...not camera angles and shot composition.

Those are technical aspects that I also admire in well made films. TLITW was well shot, the lighting was good...so what? And I'm not talking about whether the ending was good, or the twist made sense...it's a cancer that runs deep through the bones here...

The story didn't work, and that is the main thing...from early on, it disengaged me and never won me back. The idea is something completely separate, good or bad...the whole unfolding of the story just hit one wrong note after another.

The characters were flat...there was no emotional attachment. Even if they wanted to believe, I didn't care about them, or believing that they wanted to believe. I can't even remember a single name except Cleveland and Story...and one is a place, while the other is something every film should have in spades...not so with TLITW.

I agree with Luis...I never really get a lasting effect from M. films (except TLITW, for all the wrong reasons). The Sixth Sense made you think about how the clues were there and you missed them, or how it was so cool the way he told the story without the audience picking up on the main character's real state, but that's it. It was on a novelty level...not some deeper philosophical one.
SPZ said:
I particularly never took great attention to the water/purity simbolism.
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Didn't somone in TLITW actually make a reference to that symbolism? Or am I thinking of something else? I'm pretty sure it was an inside joke kind of thing in something I have seen recently.

As for Lady in the Water, all those mithological characters that M. Night created were simbolic.
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Symbolic of what? If their purpose was to be a fairy tale that required alot of faith, then he went overboard...it was just too complicated and drawn out. If it was meant to set up the premise you discuss later on, that of unity amongst diverse people, it went too far...

You don't have to make a fairy tale so convoluted that it rivals mapping the human genome for it to require some faith to believe in it...fairy tales are already hard to believe. That's what makes them fairy tales...

[QOTE]Also, I believe the beautifull thing about this film was that it united a group of people that looked like their lifes where without a meaning in a joint purpose. That purpose was to help someone, of course.
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Sure, I can see that...I just wish the movie was better so that this theme wasn't lost in the muck of it all.

WOuld those group of people who are so different, ever work together for the well being of another? What where their gains in this?
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Selfish as humans can be sometimes...people can be helpful for no real motive other than they like to be helpful sometimes...what was the gain from sitting through the whole film?

That's the real question...
 
I consider M. Night an Auteur. He has his own language, cinematographicaly, narratively, etc.

The same can't be said of Adam Sandler or the others you mentioned.

And, sincerely, in therms of cinematic richness you can't compare Adam Sandler to M. Night.

Luis, Giammanti's character in Lady was extremely well developed and human.

Gibson's character in Signs- ditto

Joaquins in the Village- ditto. Why?

In M. Night's films, you get a glimpse of the traits we need to know of the characters. They are, at least for me, believable, and their motives are explained and fit the characters. I do not need to know the full range of GIammanti's despair or his whole background story. The same goes to Willis character, or Gibson's character. It was that particular moment in life, or situation, that molded the characters to face the "movie time"action. These life marking experiences are always presented for us, the viewer, to relate to the characters, and the stories.

I never really felt disconnected with any of M Night's main characters- excluding his own terrible performance in his last film.

The characters are simbolic, allright, but not as simple as you EDIT and I EDIT described. Maybe my description of the simbolism of Joaquin Phoenix's characters traits were over simplistic. Joaquin's character was of that of the son of one of the VIllage's elders, a person with responsability, brother and bearer of the responsability of taking care and defending his family. He was a mature adolescent in that fear driven community, and was a person driven by reason. His eyes were not "closed" by the illusion created by the villagers.

Here's another perspective.

If one should blame simbolic characters, then characters from film masterpieces like "The Seventh Seal" from Igmar Bergman where cinematic failures for being "one dimensional" simbolic characters.

I believe that character development has to be analised in the context of the narrative presented. Overly developed characters in a one dimensional story, or one dimensional characters in multi layered stories, or a mixture of both EDIT- There's no unique "correct" way of doing it. In the end, it is how the cinematic work presents itself, and how it works as a communication piece, or as Art, wathever that is- big, big endless discussion here- that matters.

For me, his works work very well as a cinematic piece. His works are fresh, intelligent, accessible and satisfying. While somehow disappointed with Lady in The Water, I can however never qualify it as a mediocre film- not with the likes of "Superbad", or "Ewan ALmighty", or "Adam Sandler romantic comedy XVI", etc. Around.

My opinion, of course.

EDIT- Desica, but the point was that you did feel something for the Giammanti character. That was the main character of the movie, and the whole drama developed trough his POV. The same happens to Signs, Unbreakable, the Sixth Sense. The only movie we see a break on this structure is on The Village- we have two main characters there. And they are both fullfilling, in my view.

If you see Life is Beautiful, for example, we see the development of the whole premise trough the eyes of One very well developed character- Begnini's, like troughout his movie cinematography. Of course we also understand the kids perspective, but it is the energy and the way the main character faces the world that we identify with. The German guards/doctor/ lady were incredibly one dimensional to convey the story, don't you think? But did it work? Of course it did. Because the story was not about those characters, but about the main character and the journey.
 
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Actually, its such a shame we are not having these film discussions at a cafe, on a weekend. Over here, in Macau, China, its a cinema lover's desert. :)

Well, fortunately there's DVXuser...

EDIT- Forget this personal rant and do resume the discussion...
 
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It was like the answer to a question nobody asked...

Poor kids...they can't tell him to go back and exchange it for something better.
 
Actually just "revisited" the movie. Beautiful framing and camerawork. Fantastic cinematography. I would love to have "the eye" to shoot like that...

Also, seen the deleted scenes, i could very well see that they butchered Christopher Doyle's cinematography in Post-production/telecine CC.

As for the story, this movie is not Shyamalan's best. But it is not a bad movie in any way. its a lesser M.Night film, but certainly far superior than 80% of the summer blockbuster trash that came on its year...

But this is one man's opinion, of course.
 
Yep I can only eco your comments, I too am a Shyamalan movie fan but by the end of this one I was actually angry as I had been waiting so long to see it, and their was no twist at the end, nothing..!
Let us not forget Ocean's 12, ...actually please lets FORGET, that movie was such crap that I can't even watch Ocean's 11 again and that, I thought was a good movie, I even purchased the DVD.
I have never seen Ocean's 13 and don't plan to.
 
murrayjob said:
Yep I can only eco your comments, I too am a Shyamalan movie fan but by the end of this one I was actually angry as I had been waiting so long to see it, and their was no twist at the end, nothing..!
Let us not forget Ocean's 12, ...actually please lets FORGET, that movie was such crap that I can't even watch Ocean's 11 again and that, I thought was a good movie, I even purchased the DVD.
I have never seen Ocean's 13 and don't plan to.
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would a twist have helped?
 
Does M Night coming on-screen and promising the audience the refund of their ticket price+the value of two hours of their time, count as a "twist...?"
 
I saw this the other day on HBO, wow what a disapointment. How can a guy who made such a classic as Six Sense possibly make a movie this bad. I'm not expecting all his films to be as good as Six Sense, but you would of never thought the same brain who worked on Six Sense can Produce something as horrible as LITW.
 
capitalP said:
I saw this the other day on HBO, wow what a disapointment. How can a guy who made such a classic as Six Sense possibly make a movie this bad. I'm not expecting all his films to be as good as Six Sense, but you would of never thought the same brain who worked on Six Sense can Produce something as horrible as LITW.
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Spielberg made "HOOK."
 
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