Unbreakable Directed by: M. Night Shyamalan Comparing his newest film with his mainstream audience breakthrough, The Sixth Sense, (he directed two other films before that, Wide Awake and Praying with Anger), I came up with a few linking motifs in both films. First was that both films were shot in Philadelphia. Location is important, but isn't the lifeline. Bruce Willis appeared in both films, but I could make a very long list of other actors who could pull the weight of both roles. Then I thought cute little kids who have a touch of evil, but that just sells popcorn, not movies. The most obvious answer would be a surprise ending, but I've seen many a great films that have no surprises, and everything is obvious. Then I figured it out, maybe. Shyamalan has a keen sense of pacing in his films, almost akin to a slowly evolving foreign film, or an old-time epic. His films live by a code of appreciating the art of telling a story, something most American audiences don't seem to miss, judging by the box office receipts of such brain-drains as Little Nicky and Charlie's Angels. We live in a visual society, a give-me, give-me, give-me now generation. Our lives are speeding up, and so is the editing of films. Unbreakable is told at a crawling pace in which visuals play just as big of a role as the story and characters. Shyamalan takes his time, and I realize that it takes nerve to do that in a mainstream film. There's a lot of talking in Unbreakable, and if you're not paying attention, the ending will not pay off for you. I enjoyed the surprise ending to both The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable because it reminds me that paying attention to all the details of a film is often times essential to understanding the whole meaning of it. If you think you have this film figured out because you've seen the coming attraction trailer 50 times, you're in for a treat. It's a superhero film, minus the action and the buttered and salted special effects. Bet you didn't know that did you? It's about comic books, and art, and about self-realizations when it comes to supernatural powers. Ads forget to mention that, and audience members should applaud the fact that this film and its trailer are not structured like a car commercial. Some people would argue that the "secret" to Shyamalan's films is his surprise endings, and I would have to disagree. I didn't fully enjoy The Sixth Sense until a second viewing, and I feel a second viewing of Unbreakable might be necessary. Just like a good novel, it's always better with repeated readings. I don't have a problem with sitting through a film twice if it pays off, but most people want it all the first time. The secret to a great film such as Citizen Kane is that it isn't great until you've seen it for your fifth time and you come to new realizations about it. Replay ability is a key factor to a great film. The story line of Unbreakable is not wise to talk about to people who haven't seen it, because I personally believe to enjoy the entire film one would have to go in with a blank slate. Bruce Willis and Samuel Jackson play off each other well in this newest take on the superhero genre. It's a big step forward in the genre and it's also a step forward for both actors, as well as for Robin Wright Penn, who wasn't in the film nearly enough. I would have liked to see more of the comic book world that Samuel Jackson's Elijah Price lives in, and I felt that the film would have all come together better by adding a few more scenes of this nature. No film is perfect, but at least Shyamalan is putting in the right ingredients. I would like to see what Shyamalan could do without the surprise endings and see if he can still make a film work. At least I could confidently scratch "surprise endings" off my list of what makes a film perfect.
|
Page Created and maintained by
Dave Gunn ©®