Shyamalan continues to thrill audiences

Rating: 10/10 (10 August 2002)

Signs had a difficult battle of meeting the high expectations that M. Night set for himself. Sixth Sense provided that twisted ending that made audiences see it twice to check M. Night's consistency and Unbreakable is one of the few modern movies that not only tells an amazing story but uses many innovative film techniques to demonstrate a point. But I believe that M. Night did not want to spell it out for us so cut and dry this time around, he relied a lot on the audience's perception of this movie. M. Night did not wait for the very end to twist the plot like he in Unbreakable and Sixth Sense, but he used a more clandestine approach to make the audience think and send them back to see it right away at least two or three times to check their theories.
SPOILERS
M. Night has taken a child's candid and insightful approach to life as the key in all of his films. It as if what he has been trying to tell all us is that children are the key to all of the life's mysteries. Therefore, just as Haley Joel Osment had the key to the purgatory creatures and Wide Awake's Joseph Cross held the key to answering his own impossible question, little Bo Hess has the key to what actually went on in this movie. Her first lines were strange but overshadowed by the horror of such a mammoth crop circle. Bo said to her father `You're in this dream too?' and her father, Graham (Mel), replied `This isn't a.' (Graham never finished the lie) Bo comments about dreams two other times throughout the films duration. M. Night also shows many night figures like metal moon wind figure blowing from a ledge of the barn and star cut outs of wood during the daylight to contrast with a dreamlike atmosphere. These contrasting images portray a dream taking place that even though the dream takes place during daylight hours, night figures still exist, perhaps solely for symbolism. Having the entire movie, except the very ending when Graham is shown becoming a father again, dismisses a lot of the distasteful comments said about the film. Some did not like the abrupt Sci-fi turn the film took at the end, they prefer that M. Night tap into the tricks he used in Unbreakable and continue to only show a dark reflection of the alien or just its shadow and an occasional finger or two but not the entire alien. But, dreamlike apparitions must be shown in their entirety unless the dreamer as a lack of imagination. The movie did not show a cut a dry dream for one reason. Think how upset audiences would be if M. Night panned from Graham's bedroom from the dream to him waking up. The audience would walk away feeling that they accomplished nothing by going to see the movie that just witnessed a man's dream that re-established his faith. Therefore, it was imperative for M. Night to flash forward to the dream's outcome and put in the hand of the audience to decide what they just saw.
M. Night keeps amazing me with his innovative style, twists, and plots. Movies about questioning faith are potent force in everyone's mind and M. Night tackled the task in the strangest but most perfect and thrilling way. I have become the biggest M. Might Shyamalan fan and I know want to be the first in line to all of his movies and I hope that one day I could meet or even get a chance to work with this brilliant filmmaker. I gain something new every time I re-watch Sixth Sense, Unbreakable, and Signs. IN a disappointing summer season of blockbuster movies, Signs stands alone as the must see of the summer and the must own when it comes out on tape just so you can enjoy this ingenious piece of filmmaking over and over.