Darkness Comes and Night Falls (The Village (DVD))

Member Name: plipplop

Product:	The Village (DVD)
Date:	12/01/07 (104 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Well made, intriguing, romantic

Disadvantages: A sheep in wolf's clothing

It is the late nineteenth century and in a quiet, secluded valley there exists a village. The villagers are simple folk, living entirely off the land and enjoying the simplicity of their subsistent lifestyle. Watching over the welfare of the villagers is a small group of mature residents known as The Elders, whose wisdom is unquestioned and whose instructions are followed without question. But The Village is not quite the haven that it at first purports to be.

The inhabitants live in fear of a mysterious race of creatures that inhabit the thick woods on the outskirts of the village. Fear of the creatures is great and as such, the villagers maintain a constant vigil against the terrifying beasts. The young men take turns at night duty, atop huge wooden lookout posts and a clear perimeter is maintained around the village. The villagers are forbidden from ever entering the woods and dress themselves in yellow cloaks to appease the creatures when leaving sacrificial offerings. The colour red is believed to anger the beasts and any red flowers or fruits are quickly buried before they can attract the attention of “Those We Do Not Speak Of”. It seems rather primitive, but there is a balance of sorts and the villagers are generally content with their lives.

After the death of one the villagers’ children, Lucius Hunt (the son of one of the elders) requests permission to leave the village and make his way to one of the infamous towns, in order to obtain medicines and drugs that are otherwise missing from the village. His request is denied but his curiosity still gets the better of him and one morning he ventures into the forbidden woods, only to be spotted by one of the feared creatures. His actions do not go without consequence. One of the creatures is later sighted at a lookout post and is seen walking through the village as the terrified inhabitants scramble for cover. Red marks appear on the villagers’ doors and livestock is found skinned and discarded in the fields. A corner has been turned and for the inhabitants of The Village, things may never be the same again. But were they ever quite what they believed them to be?

Can you admire a film and yet still dislike it? I think you probably can and where The Village is concerned, this would most definitely be the case for me. Whilst I can (and will) find much to like about this film, it is ultimately a victim of phenomenon – a phenomenon whipped up by hype and Hollywood machination that was forever doomed to be a failure.

Listed under at least four different genres on the Internet Movie Database, The Village is indeed many things. It is a love story – a classic tale of adventure and misfortune brought about by the mutual adoration felt by two people. It is a mystery, woven around secrets, lies and a deception that runs far deeper than you could probably imagine. It is a chiller, peppered with shocks designed to make you jump and attempts to unnerve and unsettle. But for me above all else, it is a drama, a morality play – an investigation into the power of belief. Is truth based on belief or fact?

As a love story, The Village is very effective. It demonstrates sensitivity and a depth of feeling that is sincere and engaging. Lucius Hunt and Ivy Walker are as likely to be together as they are unlikely. He is quiet, reserved and shy, yet demonstrates a bravery and spirit of conviction that outshines his peers. She is loud, outspoken and jolly, yet her blindness makes her vulnerable and perceptive in equal doses. Their relationship is not based on passion or excitement. It is based on sincerity and affection and there are many touching moments in the film. The film’s period setting also adds to the effectiveness of the romantic setting – the simplistic nature of the villagers serves only to make their dialogue and actions all the more important. Joaquin Phoenix is absolutely perfect as the meek, yet kind-hearted Lucius and Bryce Dallas Howard is truly inspired as the young blind girl. You couldn’t really ask for more convincing performances.

As a mystery, it is also quite effective, if only because the mysterious village and its rather odd inhabitants soon intrigue you. The story creeps along and weaves its way in and out of the characters like a tendril of fog and leads you first one way and then another. The film is seldom very exciting, comforting itself instead with short bursts of action followed by characterisation and intrigue. It is, ultimately, quite unsettling. It isn’t really a horror film, containing no gore or horror, as we would expect and only providing shocks for those who are easily shocked. This is perhaps unusual because this is the main direction in which the marketing machine was pointed. But rest assured that The Village is not a horror film – the 12A certificate should be enough to convince you of this.

It is in the fourth arena that The Village confounds and astounds in seemingly limitless quantities and for me, it is here that it starts to fall apart. Following the success of The Sixth Sense and its killer twist, Shyamalan was catapulted into the mainstream. Cited as a twenty-first century answer to Alfred Hitchcock, his following films Unbreakable and Signs were popular, but didn’t really have that jolting twist at the end that made everyone in the audience gasp. The Sixth Sense was clever and inspired. Backwards or forwards, it made sense and satisfied us that it was actually a very clever tale. The Village, however, is not. Shyamalan has simply tried too hard to recreate that climactic shock and hasn’t really worked with the rest of the film. The explanation does stand up at least if you suspend some disbelief and throw yourself into the spirit of things, but it just feels out of sorts with the rest of the film. It is very disappointing. It feels contrived, almost as though he was making a masterpiece and then grew very tired of it all. Indeed, in his quest to maintain his status as “King of the Cinematic Twist”, I almost felt that Shyamalan designed the whole story around a very simple premise and worked backwards from the end. It felt as though he ended up stitching bits on here and there and filling in details related to what might become obvious questions.

This is a huge shame, because conceptually, I actually bought into the whole idea and decided that I could rationalise what was happening. Much of the story is based on real life in that you can easily find people that live their lives in the same way as the inhabitants of The Village. Isolation, subsistence and superstition are certainly not rare. The real shame was that a fundamentally interesting premise was employed in the way that it was. There is nothing worse than being cheated. Your feelings of satisfaction, triumph and contentment are immediately unsettled by the revelation that someone is not who or what they purport to be. This was the effect that The Village had on me. As I left the cinema, I felt as though I had been manipulated into watching something, indeed BELIEVING in something that really wasn’t what it appeared to be. Arguably, of course, it could be said that Shyamalan should be credited for being able to do this, but he didn’t achieve this on his own. He was aided by clever marketing, well-placed trailers, advertisements and a raft of Hollywood positioning that led us all to an inevitable place. I can admire the skills of the writer, but ultimately, I’d also have to condemn him for selling his soul in pursuit of his own reputation in such a way.

Ultimately, it is on this basis that I admire and dislike this film in equal doses. It has to be said that it certainly stimulates debate (always a sign of a good film) but it will always be true for me that The Village is a Jack of all trades and master of none. This is an exercise in how to make three films simultaneously and a demonstration of how not to stitch them together. Strangely, however, I still feel compelled to recommend the film. It is certainly well made and is likely to hold your interest. Inadvertently, I have probably only added to the “What is the twist?” intrigue that led me to watch it in the first place.

Who knows? Perhaps Shyamalan’s greatest twist will come when there really is no twist at all?

Summary: There's a twist in this tale