A Misunderstood Masterpiece

Rating: Null/10 (18 August 2002)

Spoiler Alert!! People who didn't like it are definitely not getting it. But that is totally understandable. Signs is a highly symbolic movie.
People don't "get it" because North Americans are not used to heavy symbolism in film. The symbolism gives it a "dream-like" quality that is confusing to some. Symbolism is also "alien" to the genre of science fiction.
From "The World Treasury of Science Fiction" "So much science fiction was... unreal on one hand, and so concerned with the gritty realities of science and technology on the other, that a majority of educated readers had no interest in learning how to read the genre, a practice easily picked up by children and teenagers - by taking every detail literally at first, until given other direction by the text. This is just the reverse of the way we approach the prose literature..."
Science fiction is a product of the post-modern materialist world. A world in which there is no God, and only technology can save us from the random dangers of the Universe. This is precisely the ideology that the filmmaker is against! He even pokes fun at the sci-fi fans with "Dr Biimbo" and the brother's theory on "the nerds".
Far from being a science fiction film that needs to conform to the expectations of the genre, Signs is actually out right "anti-science fiction". It doesn't make scientific sense on purpose (how could aliens that melt in water walk around in earths atmosphere, which contains high quantities of water, without environmental suits?), because it's not about science. It's about faith. It's about symbolism.... signs...
Most science fiction is written as "what would aliens really be like?" "What is the most realistic alien invasion scenario I can come up with?" Signs isn't like that. In Signs, the aliens are just symbols. The invasion is a symbol. The house is a symbol. The signs are a symbol.
So for all the atheist sci-fi fans who didn't "get" the symbolism, here it is put very simply:
"when you don't have faith, you are alone in the world. Isolated and vulnerable to the soulless whims of nature. You are like a boy with asthma trapped in the basement of a boarded up house in the middle of nowhere surrounded by invading aliens."
That's it. Get it now?
This is one of the best films I have seen... until the last five minutes. It has some flaws, but what great work of art doesn't have a few flaws somewhere?
And BTW, the most unrealistic aspect of the film is not the aliens, it's portraying a rural American farmer who doesn't own a shotgun. :)