Shyamalan's Masterpiece

Rating: 10/10 (11 July 2005)

In my summer Film Analysis course, we watched this movie. When I saw it in theaters, I had lukewarm feelings. Now, I see a whole different movie.
The standard chase sequence in a movie like T2, or The Fast and the Furious, has close to one thousand shots. M. Night Shyamalan's Unbreakable has approximately four-hundred shots. Four-hundred! What is more interesting are the subtleties found in nearly each and every cut.
Take, for instance, the beginning of each scene dealing primarily with Samuel L. Jackson's character, Elijah. Whenever Shyamalan makes a transition into one of Elijah's scenes, it's done by showing it through a some sort of glass--a reflection in a television monitor or a glass picture frame, a window, a car's rear-view mirror, a glass of water, etc. In one particular scene, Elijah is in a clinic, staring of into space as the doctor lists his injuries. Elijah says to himself, "They called me 'Mr. Glass.'" The camera then zooms into his eye, and cross-fades into an eye-shaped logo printed on, you guessed it, a glass window through which we see Audrey, Robin Wright Penn's character.
Another interesting fact is that the color contrast has been altered. In various scenes concerning David Dunn (note the alliteration, commonly used for Stan Lee's superheroes' secret identities), there is a green hue. Also notice that David wears green colors, whereas Elijah wears purple colors. Likewise, many of Elijah's scenes have a purple hue. Not only are green and purple commonly used for classic comic book character (the Incredible Hulk, the Joker, etc.), but this is also a visual representation of Elijah's line about him and David being on the opposite ends of the spectrum.
In addition, I strongly believe that this film was heavily inspired by Stanley Kubrick; not Hitchcock or Spielberg, as many assume. The long, ominous shots, the obsessive attention to detail, and the heavy use of the steadicam suggest Kubrick's influence. This could even be found in the music cues. When David Dunn follows the "orange man" into a house, at one point there is a one-second cut to the dead body of the home's owner, and the murderer forcing himself into the house--The Shining, anyone? Another often ignored quality of this movie is the romance between David and Audrey. It avoids almost all of the Hollywood clichés. You first think that this is a couple that should be, and likely will end up, divorced. However, the story reveals something deeper between them as it progresses. One of the most beautiful parts of the movie is when David is carrying her up the stairs after returning home from the house.
In 2000, when the movie was released, the critical reaction was that the film was so-so, good or just okay--an alright movie, but nowhere near the quality of The Sixth Sense. Audience's views were identical. However, I truly believe that this movie will be fondly recognized years from now. Can anyone imagine that Stanley Kubrick was nominated for a Worst Director Razzie for The Shining? Hitchcock's Vertigo was considered weak when it was initially released; now it is considered perhaps Hitchcock's most personal film, and it ranks among his best work.
I strongly believe that Unbreakable is Shyamalan's masterpiece. The problem with it is that the studio marketed it poorly. It is a drama that was marketed as a suspense thriller in the same style of The Sixth Sense, which is why most people were expecting something similar. The same problem occurred with The Village. Unbreakable might just be the most underrated blockbuster of the 21st century. If not, it's certainly one of them. Having seen it three times in the last week, outside of film class, I think this should have won Oscars for cinematography and screenplay, and it should have at least been nominated for Best Picture of 2000. And no, I don't think that's pushing it.