Questions Not Answers

Rating: 9/10 (25 August 2004)

I love this time of year - late summer, when the blockbusters start to die out, and we get back to proper movies that are not released just to sell lunch boxes. The Village made me remember why I love movies so much. I was gripped.
After a summer of such boring, seen-it-before-rubbish, like "I, Robot", "Van Hesling", and "Spider Man 2" (or "Spider Man Again" as I like to call it) this was intelligent filmaking, perfectly paced, suspense fuelled, and wonderfully acted. The scene in which William Hurt has like a passionate, forceful monologue was riveting - all one take - it breathed life into my love for cinema.
Shyamalan has borrowed from the right places - The Wicker Man, Don't Look Now, Dark Water, Blair Witch etc, but he is a truly gifted and individualistic filmmaker, who always takes the narrative of his films down paths I never expect. We are witnessing the work of a filmmaker on a par with Hitchcock and Spielberg; he has his own style, and whatever you say about "THE SHYAMALAN TWIST", very few people actually see it coming. The Sixth Sense is a classic, Unbreakable was for me his best film - by far the most thought provoking,insightful and skillful of the current cluster of Comic book movies we have witnessed over the last few years. Signs for me was a dip, but The Village was the best chiller film I've seen since The Ring.
Stunning, emotive, moving, spooky, tinged with a political message, and like all great art - the viewer is left with questions not answers. It's films like this that remind me why I go to the odeon week after week.