It’s Time to Return to M. Night Shyamalan’s ‘The Village’
The Scoop features personal essays on movie-centric topics.
By Kevin Prchal
I wasn’t around in the summer of 1975 for the mass hysteria surrounding Steven Spielberg’s Jaws. Lines spanning city blocks, millions of vacationers afraid to get in the water, dethroning The Godfather as box office king after just 78 days in theaters. As it’s been said, Jaws wasn’t just a summer blockbuster—it invented the summer blockbuster.
I know what you’re thinking and don’t worry: this is not another cringe comparison of Shyamalan to Spielberg. When sizing up filmographies, there is hardly a comparison to be made.
But between the years of 1999-2004, a formative moviegoing time for me, M. Night Shyamalan was the guy. If only in my head, the hysteria that amassed in the summer of 1975 was alive and well in the anticipation and conversation surrounding a new Shyamalan film.
From Dynamo to Dunce
Shyamalan’s first three films—The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable and Signs—were widely celebrated by critics and audiences alike, catapulting this strange new voice in American cinema to a stage not every filmmaker gets the chance to stand on. A director whose name alone sold the movie, not the actors starring in it.
So when his fourth cryptic new film The Village was set to be released in July of 2004, expectations were HIGH. And when they’re that high, it’s a long way to fall if you don’t meet them.
Though its aforementioned hysteria earned it a whopping $256 million at the worldwide box office, The Village was reviled and ridiculed the world over, signaling a turning point in M. Night’s career. “The Twist” endings of his films became the easy target of the Shyamalan brand of storytelling—a meme before memes. Suddenly, this filmmaker who once inspired fear and wonder in audiences, who was literally crowned “The Next Spielberg” by Newsweek, was at once, well...The Village dunce.
And as I look around at the film landscape of our present day, I have to ask: Why? How can we embrace computer-animated raccoons shooting guns in space, lukewarm franchise reheats and Gentleminions, yet harshly deny such a boldly original talent? By all cinematic standards of today, this film is not only masterfully conceived—it is among his very best.
So pack your bags, all ye naysayers—it’s time to return to The Village.
Thrills & (Autumnal) Chills
First and foremost, The Village experience is nothing if not pure autumnal bliss. Shot through the eyes of the great cinematographer Sir Roger Deakins, every frame is an image you could mount above your fireplace. The dead trees, overcast skies, flashes of red and gold—it all works together to create a scene that’s both welcoming and haunting. And soaring behind it all, like a cold New England wind, is the film’s folkloric score composed and performed immaculately by James Newton Howard and violinist Hilary Hahn. Bottom line, skip the “Farm Fresh Pumpkins” signs at World Market for your fall decor and put on The Village instead.
Secondly, for those looking for a thrill, this movie delivers. Not in the axe-murdering, flesh-eating, house-haunting kind of way—it’s something far more understated. Shyamalan is a master of dynamics, as this and every film of his before it can attest. He revels in the quiet spaces of his characters’ lives, making it all the more powerful and terrifying when those thrilling moments occur.
Whether it’s Lynn in The Sixth Sense walking away from the kitchen and returning two seconds later to find all the kitchen cabinets and drawers inexplicably opened; the spine-tingling home-footage of an alien walking past the window of a Brazilian birthday party in Signs; or Ivy holding out her hand for Lucius in The Village as the creature slowly comes into focus, these moments hit big in the hushed worlds they exist in.
And speaking of the creature in The Village—this is still one of the scariest, most imaginative and frankly coolest creature designs I’ve ever seen in a movie. Even today, eighteen years after its release and privy to every plot twist, I marvel at the cryptic elements at play in this movie. They’re perfect for that Halloween thrill without the gore.
In the Deep, Dark Woods
Finally, there can be no discussion of The Village without considering when it was written, filmed and released. Still living in the wake of the attacks on September 11, this film foraged its way into the deep, dark woods of the American psyche. We clung to fighting words like “the war on terror” and “rid the world of evil” without fully understanding who it was we were fighting.
This led to a sweeping fear of the “other,” and an attachment to false stories perpetuated by everyone from strangers on the street to our highest elected officials. We were lost. And when people are that lost, vulnerable, angry and afraid—stories become very powerful.
Exploring this idea, Shyamalan creates a world wherein the Elders of the village (each broken and united by grief) orchestrate an elaborate story in an attempt to safeguard innocence and ward off the painful realities of the world. Their children, born into and fully adjusted to the stories they’ve been told, accept their reality without question, living day after day in fear of the looming creature in the woods and the townspeople beyond them—the “others.”
As the movie unfolds and tragedy strikes, the Elders learn that their way of life may not be the road to peace they hoped it would be. It’s only when the brave and blind Ivy Walker ventures into the woods seeking medicine for her dear Lucius, transcending every threat she’s been conditioned to fear, that they learn: it’s the pursuit of love, not fear, that will save them in the end.
#ReleaseTheVillageBluray
In 100 years, I’m not sure film scholars will be debating the politics of M. Night Shyamalan. Nor will they be talking about The Village on the same level they talk about Jaws.
But I’m hopeful that future generations who return to this film, removed from the feeble backlash, will reject all condescending notions of the “twist” ending, and call it what it is: creative storytelling. I’m hopeful it will stack high against the CGI landfill and live-action-what-have-yous of today.
And most of all, I’m hopeful that the Elders at the Walt Disney Company will get it together and finally give The Village its rightful Blu-ray release. If not, well, may this article be proof enough that this movie matters—if only to a small isolated community of fans.