a forest... (the Cure)

Rating: 7/10 (24 August 2004)

SPOILERS...
Because of great movies shot these last years such as the indispensable "the Sixth Sense" (1999), a new film by M Night Shyamalan is always eagerly awaited. After "Signs" (2002), "the Village" was launched in 2004 and oddly, it somewhat disappoints without we know very well why. You come out of the projection with a certain bitter taste. Why?
However, a spectator who would neglect the qualities that this film contains would be someone with a lack of judgment. M Night Shyamalan's making is still as sumptuous and his work is scattered with strong moments like the scene when Adrien Brody wounds Joaquin Phoenix. Moreover, the director often succeeds in making us jump. There's also a magnificent photography that reflects well the colors of the fall and it is quite easy to detect in the nocturnal sequences a careful work on the light. To go on, "the Village" has got two common point with Shyamalan's previous work, "Signs": a will to use special effects at a minimum and the fact that this village is located in the heart of a deep forest supposedly haunted really gives the impression to be "In Camera", just like in "Signs" with Mel Gibson's farm. At last, to write his screenplay, we can conclude that the director, in the first part, essentially drew from "Witness" (1985), a movie by Peter Weir while the second part when Bryce Dallas Howard disappears into the woods, quite obviously recalls "the Blair Witch Project" (1999). All these assets reveal M Night Shyamalan's will to distinguish himself very clearly from the Hollywood influence. All of this would be perfect if there weren't any faults and sadly there are some in this film.
First, Shyamalan couldn't avoid one of the traps that the topic was tending: the stereotyped characters, it is the case with Adrien Brody whom we can consider the mad man of the village. Then, one of the strongest points in the previous works shot by this talented filmmaker partly lied on excellent performances from all the actors which created a sort of harmony. In "the Village", I must admit that the performance remains patchy: William Hurt and Bryce Dallas Howard manage well but Joaquin Phoenix is rather inexpressive. As for Sigourney Weaver, I read that she was so much excited by the script that she had sleepless nights but I think she has only a minor role. Furthermore, the beginning of the film is labored in the way the director lingers on the presentation of the main characters in the village which delays the beginning of the plot.
Now what to say about the outcome? Like Alfred Hitchcock, M Night Shyamalan understood that in a detective film to make the suspense last, nothing must be disclosed until the end of a film, the surprise will only be bigger. Besides, he had insisted that the journalists didn't reveal the end of the story. Personally, I can't make up my mind whether the outcome is stunning or poor. In a way, it is stunning if you take care of what Hurt says at the end of the movie and so, the whole story makes sense. But it can also be considered as poor for the spectators who expected to watch a fantastic movie and it can explain why most people felt disappointment about "the Village". On IMDB, the popularity rating is only 6,4 out of 10.
But we can opt for another interpretation. Maybe M Night Shyamalan wanted to play with the spectator and to laugh at him by leading him on wrong tracks and revealing him that the supposedly haunted forest is just a pure invention from William Hurt. Roughly, the film can be taken for a farce.
You will be able, according to your mood, find the end of the movie and even the whole movie, clever or poor. One last thing, there's no denying that in spite of plenty of obvious qualities, M Night Shyamalan's works are getting less and less appealing. I can only wish this: that he recovers