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The Village - ***+
First, I don't really want to get into a big discussion of M. Night Shyamalan's work. I will say, just as a statement, that I think he's struggling uphill, the way anybody will who first has a huge hit and then has to try to match that again and again. My own take on his films: I liked Unbreakable best for its quirkiness and dark colors and what I considered a far more interesting underlying conflict than The Sixth Sense; The Sixth Sense next; then The Village; last (and least) Signs. So if you haven't seen The Village but want to, and don't want any surprises spoiled, don't read any further.
I watched this movie twice on DVD in the last few days, and a lot of ideas went through my head. Most of them are not things M. Night Shyamalan would be happy about. For example: somebody with a PhD in American history who teaches as The University of Pennsylvania (the main character, but you don't know that to start with: you see him as an elementary school teacher) is bound to have a far more sophisticated and less romanticized view of the 1800s than M. Night Shyamalan does, and so the whole premise of the movie fails.
To be more specific: if such a professor, traumatized by the violence of modern life, wanted to get away and start fresh, he'd know too much about the way things really were to try to create this perfect world of a circa-1890 village in the middle of a huge, private wildlife preserve.
Because of course, that's the twist. They aren't in the past at all, but in a pseudo-Amish type present, except nobody in the younger generation KNOWS that. The elders know, because they chose to start the Village, and they've spent the last thirty years trying to keep the youngsters from going out and exploring the wider world. To protect them from violence. Of course, violence sometimes comes from within, and they learn that the hard way.
The other kinds of questions that went through my mind were along this line: look at those shoes, do they have a cobbler? and, If they can't go into the woods, how are they heating all those buildings through a Pennsylvania winter? Where does the firewood come from? and: Crikey, the brute labor necessary to keep this community in food and clothes and shelter without ANY trade with the outside world -- these people look way too relaxed and merry. Where did they get the cotton for those dresses, because they sure aren't growing it in that climate. Where are the flax fields? Who makes rope when they need it? Where are all the spinning wheels and looms? What about the mills for corn and for cutting lumber? Do they make ink, and use quills? Where's the blacksmithy? Who supplies glass when one of the windows in the greenhouse breaks? Wait, what did they sweeten that wedding cake with? Honey?
All of these questions led me to figure out the twist (that they aren't in the year 1897, really) very quickly. Especially as the timing was just off. By 1897 photography was pretty wide spread, and it's almost impossible to imagine an eastern village so isolated that nobody would come looking for the people in it, sooner or later. Maybe -- maybe I could have bought all this if the year had been 1700, when huge portions of the country were far less overrun with European types -- but even then it would have been hard.
Now see, because I had such trouble with the historical aspects of this movie, I couldn't really appreciate the story, and there were things to appreciate. Joachim Phoenix -- he really is an excellent actor -- did an incredible job with one of the main characters. The love story, which wasn't much of the plot but important, was gently told and really beautiful. I really cared about some of the characters, but there just wasn't enough of most of them to pull me in.
I wish I could turn off my mind when I see a movie like this, but that seems to be beyond me.
January 17, 2005 02:29 PM
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Comments
When I saw the first teaser trailer for The Village about six months before it came out, all they showed was Joachim Phoenix standing at the edge of the forest, with a William Hurt voiceover talking about the truce between the villagers and the things in the forest. Then they showed the red paint on the doors of the houses and I leaned over and whispered in my girlfriend's ear:
"It's a Victorian village in modern times and the adults have been using stories of monsters to keep the kids out of the forest so the village stays isolated, but now somehow people from the outside world are getting into the village. The monsters are, like, cars or something."
"How do you know?" she asked, clearly annoyed that I was sharing my speculations.
I pointed at the red slash that was slowly working its way down the screen to form one leg of the "V" in "Village". "That's spray paint."
"Maybe it's just a production screw-up," she said.
"No. There are some things he doesn't always think through, but his production design is top shelf. If it's spray paint, it's spray paint for a reason."
Otherhow, I did really enjoy the story. It was really pretty and I loved that the blind girl turned out to be the hero of the film. I really enjoy movies that show some imagination about what constitutes bravery�in this case, having the blind girl go out into the forest rather than, like, having Joachim Phoenix fight the forest demons or some silliness like that.
Posted by: Joshua at January 18, 2005 03:22 PM
You're good, catching the spray paint. That didn't make an impression on me. However, I couldn't get over the window glass, the clearly not-handmade shoes, the cheerful nobody-works-very-hard feeling. Also the date of 1897 (on the headstone when they bury the young boy, right in the beginning).
My daughter was irritated by the stilted speech. No contractions "I cannot" "she would not" -- is that the way people really talked? she asked me. To which I had to say: probably not in 1897. Probably not in 1797. So that is definitely a production screw up, not consulting with somebody who could have given them better guidance on language issues.
But I agree with you that the blind girl as hero was an excellent touch. There were some great things in this movie, but the flawed premise is really too much for me.
And would spray paint have a shelf life of thirty years?!?
Posted by: sara at January 18, 2005 04:59 PM
And would spray paint have a shelf life of thirty years?!?
See, I just assumed they had to be having some contact with the outside world in order to get their shipments of cloth and such. Because I also had the thought about boots, textiles, glass, and metal. Everybody seemed to be some kind of intellectual or novelty craftsman: there wasn't really a blue collar sector as such.
Of course, that messes with the whole "we haven't allowed ourselves to use modern antibiotics" premise.
Posted by: Joshua at January 18, 2005 05:39 PM
Y'know, I haven't seen the movie, but somebody spoiled it for me the week after it opened (I was in the movie theatre for a new movie, and these two girls were loudly discussing the twist in THE VILLAGE. I was obliged to scold them. Anyway.), so I read your post, which is much more complete than the spoily girls in the theatre were, anyway.
And now, wow, hoo boy, do I see why Margaret Peterson Haddix is a little torqued at the Vast Coincidental Similarities between her book RUNNING OUT OF TIME and the film. I mean, I know about parallel development, but ROoT came out in about 1995. Shyamalan claims he's never read the book, but...man.
Posted by: Catie at January 18, 2005 10:14 PM
Catie, thanks for that link. I'll have to look at Running Out of Time.
Since I started this discussion a dozen new questions have occured to me. How did they decide what books were okay to have in the Village? I didn't see any overt symbols of specific religions, but they had a church, what was that all about? And how in the heck did he talk people into this experiment in the first place?
Hey Joe, I'm building a village in the middle of a huge reserve that I put together out of my father's millions. Wanna come live there? Your kids will never know violence (cough) or fear (cough, cough). They can play outside in the dusk and you'll never worry about them (...). Of course you have to swear you'll be satisfied living in a world that is completely white, heterosexual (apparently) and that promotes traditional gender roles to the exclusion of women wearing pants. And your kids, happy and safe as they are, may well die of a burst appendix, an infected scratch, or cancers that are easily curable in the outside world. Oh and, you'll have to work like a dog. Because (here's the real deal killer for me): no dogs! we are a canine free environment.
Whaddaya say?
Posted by: sara at January 19, 2005 07:03 AM
Well, in Haddix's book, they were all volunteers who, I think, wanted to escape modern society and who had unusual interests and skills (blacksmithing, for example), which was how they ended up in the village. I don't think the book addressed heterogenousness (is that a word?) or the like, particularly.
Not, of course, that the movie is based on the book. M. Night Shyamalan said so. :)
Posted by: Catie at January 19, 2005 11:36 PM