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The Village July 31, 2004 |
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There is something at the center of M. Night Shyamalan’s “The Village” that doesn’t quite fit. The story is about an isolated village in rural 19th century Pennsylvania that rests in the middle of a haunted forest. The woods contain creatures, or so it is said, that eats meat and has been known to skin farm animals alive that wander into their territory. The inhabitants of the village have a pact with the creatures, or so it is said, that states that if they stay out of the forest, the creatures will stay out of the village. That’s all well and good, but what doesn’t fit, the plot albatross, if you will, is that never for a minute do we, despite the ominous cries and soundtrack poundings, actually believe in these creatures, simply because we are never allowed to. Sure we hear the creaks, we see a hazy red-cloaked figure, we see the slain animals, we see the red warning slashes on the village doors, and we’re led to believe the fear is real, but really, it’s as tame as a kitty cat, and half as threatening. If the Hitchcockian McGuffin in “The Village” is supposed to be scary forest monsters, and not a rabid fear of outsiders, than Shyamalan’s sketchy thriller is, at best, a conflicted tease. The village of “The Village” is an ideal little piece of land in the middle of Penn’s woods, where a tight knit community, led by six or seven town elders, raises its young, and rears its livestock in complete isolation from the outside world. The elders talk about the surrounding city, just beyond the haunted forest, as if it were filled with lowlifes and criminals, not fit for the souls of their precious sanctuary. One woman tells a painful story about the brutal rape and murder of her sister in the city; an aging widow describes the slaying of her husband to their only son, and the village founder, Edward Walker (William Hurt) tells his daughter how the evils of money and greed ruined his father, a city big shot, and eventually led to his murder as well. It’s almost as if, and this may be a metaphor for the monsters-in-the-woods scenario, these people want to totally escape from any kind of hedonistic urge or petty sin, and live in a kind of utopia where everybody eats at the same table, prays at the same church, attends the same weddings and funerals, and smiles to the same neighbors, all the while succumbing to one, and only one, fear; that someday the unseen danger in the woods will attack, harming their peaceful existence, and opening up their borders to the surrounding city, and in turn, the gates of debauchery and sin. In a way, as ruled by Walker with a calming totalitarian saintliness, the society is a repressed dystopia, and has more in common with the likes of Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery”, Bradbury’s “Fahrenheit 451”, Garland’s “The Beach”, and Huxley’s “Brave New World”, than it does to a perfect world of pleasures and free-thinking ideals. “You may run from sorrow,” says Brendan Gleeson as the village preacher, “but it will find you. It can smell you, and it will find you.” These elders may preach idealism in the face of a present horror, but as Shyamalan’s plot clunks further and further into a murky middle ground of holes and uncanny, implausible twists, it becomes quite clear that this village is about as flawed as any Western saloon, or big city slum; only the booze and the bums have been replaced with strict colonial codes and a thick blanket of fear. The tightly guarded plot to “The Village” concerns more than just the constant threat of outside attack from the forest creatures, it is about early colonial life in a small community where everybody knows your name, and everybody pretends to accept life in a sheltered, albeit pleasant, wooded prison. The primary character to the story is Ivy Walker (Bryce Dallas Howard), Walker’s blind 24-year-old daughter, a kind girl who everybody likes, especially the brooding loner Lucius Hunt (Joaquin Phoenix), who protects the handicapped girl whenever possible. It is Lucius that we see walking into the forest, questioning whether or not the creatures are really harmful, and it is Lucius, the bonehead, who triggers the main action to the plot, for not one day after curiously testing the waters, the village is under attack from the monsters, though nobody really sees them (including us), and the elders start spreading a lot of conjecture to fan the flames. But, says Lucius’ mother (Sigourney Weaver), “Those red marks on the barn door were awfully high, and coyotes cannot reach that high.” Which means? Well, probably that indeed, there are creatures terrorizing the quaint village, skinning the animals alive, and throwing a serious wrench in Ivy’s plans to hook and bait Lucius into marriage, but, barring any more exposition, the plot begins to suggest that the creatures and the elders, including the questioning mother of Lucius, know an awfully lot more about each other than they originally led on. That fact thus confuses early instances of ignorance on the part of the elders, and hampers any fright intended to be had at the thought of breached borders, and personal violation of space. The film heads in one direction, stops and turns on a dime, heads down another path, turns on another dime, and winds up twenty cents short, and three ideas too many. “The Village”, for all of its convoluted structure and mixed-up messages about violence and homeland security (the 9/11 overtones are as obvious as their yellow druid cloaks are tacky), does boast a strong cast and decent visuals, courtesy of Roger Deakins’ moody cinematography. Bryce Dallas Howard, daughter of Oscar-winning director, and former child TV star Ron Howard, has a charming naivety as Ivy, the blind girl in distress, and Phoenix, who can be rather bland, is effective nonetheless before a plot twist limits his screen time. Veterans Hurt and Weaver do what they can in limited roles as two of the elders who have an attraction for each other, but with their negative attitude towards sin (he is still married), it is a hopeless attraction, and Adrian Brody, still yet to find a great role after winning his Oscar for “The Pianist”, is borderline schizo as a partially retarded man-child in love with Ivy. For sure, the actors are willing, even if the subject matter, and the stilted dialogue is not. What, in the end, gets Shyamalan in trouble is that “The Village” wants to be both a creature thriller and a study in colonialism, complete with the appropriate garb and lingo, but the blend never jells, and late plot twists, though interesting, leave the audience cold. This is a film where you want something drastic to happen, and when it does, it’s a major letdown. Shyamalan may be a gifted director, but I feel he needs to shed the stagy twists, and labored scare tactics, and stretch his abilities beyond unforeseen supernatural terror and sheltered isolation. Because, as it stands, the indigestible metaphysics of a boring Pennsylvania village, and all of the symbolic ramifications of a haunted forest, makes for one uneven stroll through the woods. by Adam Suraf “The Village” is playing at the Movieplex 59.
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