Manipulation of Fears "Par Excellence"

Rating: 9/10 (5 December 2007)

Little Cole Sear (Halley Joel Osment) is a child that seems apart from the current world, called "a freak" by his companions and always distracted and reluctant to connect to the others. Dr Malcolm Crowe (Bruce Willis) intends to help him in order to redeem himself from a bad past experience. But as Dr. Crowe deepens into the interior of Cole, he will uncover his most profound and frightening secret.
At the moment it starts, Shyamalan jolts with an uncanny music, formed by the precise scratching of superb violins. All throughout the movie the music will be vibrating, exhilarating, electrifying and yet oddly repulsive and leaving a sense of dismay and creepiness. Counting on lofty performances, emotional and groundbreaking by Halley Joel Osment, Toni Collete and star Bruce Willis, Shyamalan will clear it's field to proceed with his cunning game of manipulating the fear of the viewer. He will show you simple things, he will input the terror on ordinary stuff and common and daily elements: he will terrorize you with the using of a tape- recorder to hear whispers, he will play smartly with the shadows, mirrors, claustrophobic spaces to gasp the audience, and the use of an eerie wind always blowing to give the sense of distance and cold. He will give you a little space to start, then the fear will start erupting inside your mind.
The photography by Tak Fujimoto is intense and subtle, never approaching with direct focus but with transversal, lateral imposing lens and toying softly with the use of reflections, rolling cameras and visuals in odd places that give the film superb aesthetics. Overall, the technical aspects contribute on leaving on the viewer a feeling of dread and restlessness, awkwardness.
Shyamalan is genius at creating this suspense, avoiding blood and imposing a sly fear. That is why he became so popular.
He also delivers a lot of psychological substance, a lot of profound lines of thinking. Joel's Osment relationship with his father is portrayed with great touches, like the glasses with no crystals and the watch not working he received from him. The Indian Director also exposes his viewings on explaining a story within his sublime script. At one point Malcolm tries to tell Cole a story: -You never told a story before right? You have to add some twists and stuff.
Well prepare, because it is highly auto-referential. The script also brings forth bewitching descriptions of fear "like falling down inside but you are standing still". And then prepare for the twist. It will shake you to the ground and burn all of your movie principles. It is the Twist, what made the movie genius and so iconic.
"Sixth Sense" is a cinematic bulwark, standing on an eternal and sublime direction. Its ending is emotional, and touching. This, in order to make contrast to the excellent creation of suspense and fear that bulges through the movie. Masterful.