Shyamalan as a Thinker / Filmmaker in today's Cinema

Rating: 9/10 (21 June 2008)

M. Night Shyamaln's best film yet! Do not fall in the trap of what the critics say. Remember Vertigo by Alfred Hitchcock which was not well received by the critics at the time it was released. Now it is #9 on the AFI's 100 greatest films. M. Night Shyamalan and Darren Aronofsky are two great filmmakers of their generation.
Terrorism is not just a social happening; it is environmental. Terrorism is not something from outside. It is something from inside. It is our intention which makes the environment murderous. The environment responds to what is "happening" within us. And the environment includes humans, animals, plants, and the air we breathe. It is everything.
Our actions might have an appearance of benevolence, but our intentions are the source of real benevolence OR malevolence. Offering food and shelter to someone when we just do it because we have to is NOT benevolence, as was the case with Betty Buckley's character. The movie is full of different characters with different intentions. The John Leguizamo's character with gossipy and envious bent, the soldier's supposedly protective-and-serve attitude with his obsession toward his gun, two young boys with prying arrogance and a sense of entitlement.
When you truly want to live for someone else, to serve someone else, to love someone else, then you will survive. That is the intention which is fundamentally woven into the fabric of this planet and the universe. The rest leads to destruction, sooner or later as the movie tries to point out. So does the theory of Punctuated Equilibrium stating that how we adapt to our environment decides our fate as a species. Our individual fates are bound with our identity as a species.