We've seen the enemy
I watched M. Night Shyamalan's The Village over the weekend, and I wasn't going to write about it. But it's haunting me, a little.
Spoiler alert!!
Basically, I decided not to see this movie in the theater because a friend had gone to see it, and had told me that the whole "creatures in the woods" mystique was a hoax. Well, it came on HBO last weekend, and while I was glad that I hadn't seen it in the theater, I liked it so much that I started watching it. And I watched it through to the end. (If I hadn't known about the hoax, I might have been irritated by the ending. But since I DID know, I could watch it without getting too scared, and I could observe the performances very closely.)
Here's the skinny: The movie opens on the village, a rustic, idyllic pastoral community set in what appears to be the past. However, as the movie progresses, we learn that the villagers fear certain creatures (whom they refer to as "those we do not speak of") that lurk in the surrounding Covington Woods. Bryce Dallas Howard (who plays Ivy Elizabeth Walker, a daughter of one of the village elders) turns in a thoughtful performance as a young blind girl who discovers some of the village's secrets. She has a very unstrained delivery that I really like. Some of the lines in the script were a bit clunky, but she really pulled them off, and she did it without alot of the emoting that passes for acting these days. Adrien Brody plays Noah, a mentally challenged man, and he and Ivy have a special relationship. Joaquin Phoenix plays Lucius Hunt, Ivy's love interest. There is a wonderful scene between Lucius and Ivy on Ivy's porch, when the shy and quiet Lucius almost painfully confesses his feelings for Ivy. I thought this scene was wonderfully performed by both Phoenix and Howard.
Anyway, when Lucius and Ivy announce their plans to marry, the jealous Noah stabs Lucius. With this crime, the village begins to unravel. Village elders discuss the infection of the wound that is likely to finish Lucius off, and Ivy requests permission to cross the woods into "the towns," where life-saving medicines can be found. With great trepidation, her father convinces the elders to allow it, and he shows her the secret of the village.
The big secret is : there are no creatures. The creatures are simply village elders dressed up in elaborate costumes to keep people from the village from going into the towns. The villagers are living in modern-day times, and the elders are the architects of the entire community. (Apparently, each of the elders had someone they once loved who was murdered. They met by chance at a grief counseling center and decided to try and create their own utopia.) With this knowledge, Ivy crosses through the woods, gets the medicines, and brings them back to the village. (There are a few more complications, but that's the gist of it.)
What is fascinating to me about all of this is that it supports the premise that human nature cannot be controlled. Even in a strictly contained environment, the passions of man are unpredictable. The movie also made me think of that old adage, "We have seen the enemy, and he is us." The elders think they can separate from society, and therefore avoid senseless acts of crime/murder. But it is Noah, a member of their own society (who is, incidentally, the son of one of the village elders) who ends up committing a violent crime (the whole nature/nurture argument). Taken a step further, even the village elders themselves aren't so innocent, dressing up in Halloween costumes and tromping around, scaring the life out of everybody.
Though totally implausible (and rage-inducing, if you don't know the secret until the end of the movie), I thought the movie did encourage some interesting musings.
Spoiler alert!!
Basically, I decided not to see this movie in the theater because a friend had gone to see it, and had told me that the whole "creatures in the woods" mystique was a hoax. Well, it came on HBO last weekend, and while I was glad that I hadn't seen it in the theater, I liked it so much that I started watching it. And I watched it through to the end. (If I hadn't known about the hoax, I might have been irritated by the ending. But since I DID know, I could watch it without getting too scared, and I could observe the performances very closely.)
Here's the skinny: The movie opens on the village, a rustic, idyllic pastoral community set in what appears to be the past. However, as the movie progresses, we learn that the villagers fear certain creatures (whom they refer to as "those we do not speak of") that lurk in the surrounding Covington Woods. Bryce Dallas Howard (who plays Ivy Elizabeth Walker, a daughter of one of the village elders) turns in a thoughtful performance as a young blind girl who discovers some of the village's secrets. She has a very unstrained delivery that I really like. Some of the lines in the script were a bit clunky, but she really pulled them off, and she did it without alot of the emoting that passes for acting these days. Adrien Brody plays Noah, a mentally challenged man, and he and Ivy have a special relationship. Joaquin Phoenix plays Lucius Hunt, Ivy's love interest. There is a wonderful scene between Lucius and Ivy on Ivy's porch, when the shy and quiet Lucius almost painfully confesses his feelings for Ivy. I thought this scene was wonderfully performed by both Phoenix and Howard.
Anyway, when Lucius and Ivy announce their plans to marry, the jealous Noah stabs Lucius. With this crime, the village begins to unravel. Village elders discuss the infection of the wound that is likely to finish Lucius off, and Ivy requests permission to cross the woods into "the towns," where life-saving medicines can be found. With great trepidation, her father convinces the elders to allow it, and he shows her the secret of the village.
The big secret is : there are no creatures. The creatures are simply village elders dressed up in elaborate costumes to keep people from the village from going into the towns. The villagers are living in modern-day times, and the elders are the architects of the entire community. (Apparently, each of the elders had someone they once loved who was murdered. They met by chance at a grief counseling center and decided to try and create their own utopia.) With this knowledge, Ivy crosses through the woods, gets the medicines, and brings them back to the village. (There are a few more complications, but that's the gist of it.)
What is fascinating to me about all of this is that it supports the premise that human nature cannot be controlled. Even in a strictly contained environment, the passions of man are unpredictable. The movie also made me think of that old adage, "We have seen the enemy, and he is us." The elders think they can separate from society, and therefore avoid senseless acts of crime/murder. But it is Noah, a member of their own society (who is, incidentally, the son of one of the village elders) who ends up committing a violent crime (the whole nature/nurture argument). Taken a step further, even the village elders themselves aren't so innocent, dressing up in Halloween costumes and tromping around, scaring the life out of everybody.
Though totally implausible (and rage-inducing, if you don't know the secret until the end of the movie), I thought the movie did encourage some interesting musings.
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