Far more than a horror film

Rating: 10/10 (3 March 2000)

There are two kinds of great genre film. The first is the sort that exemplifies the conventions of the genre, while respecting the genre's limits. The second kind of genre film uses the rhetoric and archetypes of the genre to film to point beyond the limits of genre, to attain the level of the symbolic, the ethical and the spiritual.Thus , in the film Noir genre,Kiss Me Deadly is a brilliant example of the first kind of good genre film, while Touch of Evil is a brilliant example of the second. The greatness of The Sixth Sense-and I firmly believe that it is one of the handful of films from last year that can be classified as truly great-lies precisely in how it transcends its genre.The Sixth Sense resonates with Hawthornesque tonalities. It echoes Melville, Poe and Henry James ( I refer to James' great ghost stories, not his often tedious "novels of manners").The critics who saw only only a creepy, dull story with a twist at the end missed entirely the films extraordinary religious symbolism. The Bruce Willis Character is a soul in limbo, waiting to be saved. The instrument of salvation? A frightened, yet preternaturally gifted, child.Not a single performance in the film hit a false note..this is an extraordinary film about parents and children, about husbands and wives, and about life and death. The score, the cinematography, and the script were uniformly excellent. I i especially liked the filmmakers' brilliant use of the Philadelphia locale, and the way in which the cities dark history was alluded to. In short, a wonderful film and an exhilarating religious experience-SUPERB