The Happening

Whoa! A week long hiatus on The Agitation of the Mind. This can only mean one of three things:

1) I've won big on the lottery and been spending the last few days haemorrhaging money on fast cars and even faster women (clue to unlikelihood: Paula wouldn't let me);

2) The commissioning editor of Sight & Sound, stumbling upon this blog, has liked what he's seen and retained my services as staff writer on his august publication (clue to unlikelihood: well ... check the next issue);

3) I really - REALLY - don't want to write about 'The Happening'.

Hands up everyone who guessed 3.

Hands up everyone who really doesn't want to read about 'The Happening'.

Hands up everyone who knocked off reading this article two sentences ago and has gone down the pub/cinema/rental shop.

'Kay.












Nah, can't leave it.

'The Happening' is a film that doesn't have a twist ending, isn't a fairy tale, and is free of the turgid trickery of 'The Village'. Yet it's the single worst thing M Night Shyamalan has ever made. Why?

1) There's no suspense. The (intended) enigma of the first half - is what's happening a terrorist attack, or something else? - is undermined by the fact that the film-makers were talking it up as an ecological horror movie six months before it opened. Also, the resolution comes down to one of the characters saying little more than "Hey, what if it's the trees doing it?" Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.

2) It's not remotely scary. The litany of suicides becomes soul destroyingly repetitive after the first ten minutes. Thereafter, Shyamalan tries to conjure terror by frequently cutting away to shots of grass blowing in the wind, or the wind rustling through trees. The virus/infection/thingymajig is carried on the wind, you see. Thing is, wind is invisible. This is a movie. As in short for 'moving picture'. Do you see the problem here?

3) It's reminiscent of Hitchcock's 'The Birds', but without the birds. Which is kind of like doing 'Alien' but without an alien. Or 'Debbie Does Dallas' sans Debbie. Also, 'The Birds' is only a partially successful movie: the first half is lousy, the second terrific. Shymalan achieves an inverse homage here: the first of 'The Happening' is average, the second half appalling. Subject of which ...

4) The film doesn't just fall apart in the second half, it kind of stops, looks around, realises it's lost and kind of wanders around dazed until the closing credits roll.

5) The whole and-then-the-threat-just-passed finale is tres 'Signs', as is the small-group-of-survivors-holed-up-in-a-rural-locale scenario. And doesn't that sound like a certain George A Romero film?

6) Not content to fob us off with the and-then-the-threat-just-passed-and-they-all-lived-happily-ever-after-and-the-lady-got-pregnant-and-they-were-a-happy-loving-family ending, Shyamalan decides he wants to have his cake and eat it, and delivers a "shock" ending in which ... ooops, the happening happens again. Well, fuck me sideways.

Okay, I've just spent twenty minutes of my life that I'll never have again typing this - which, added to the running time of the film, clocks in at about two hours, and I'm still pissed off at James ("I'm the king of the world, woof, woof, woof") Cameron and Michael ("666") Bay for the three fuckin' hours apiece they owe me for 'Titanic' and 'Pearl Harbor', the only two movies that have had me cheering on, respectively, a large chunk of ice and a squadron of Japanese kamizakis.

Please, Mr Shyamalan, make a good movie next time. You deserve better than this kind of write-up.

Lady in the Water

The court is in session here at The Agitation of the Mind. In the dock: 'Lady in the Water'. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, you will be asked to consider a film that many people flat-out can't stand. The prosecution have piled up a welter of evidence. The defence are relying on playing devil's advocate. You will hear much in the way of opinion and theorising. I would ask that you keep one question uppermost in mind during these precedings: does 'Lady in the Water' deserve the hate?

Before we hear from the prosecuting counsel, a brief opening statement:

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, 'Lady in the Water' is a feature film written, produced and directed by M. Night Shyamalan. It concerns the discovery of a narf (a type of water nymph) named Story (played by Bryce Dallas Howard) in the communal swimming pool of an apartment complex called The Cove whose janitor, Cleveland Heap (Paul Giamatti), has slid into the anonymity of his dead-end job while he deals with the aftermath of a personal tragedy. Story's job is to locate "the Vessel", a writer whose work will bring about positive social change but at the cost of his own life, and inspire him to persist in his work. Others, including "the Healer" and "the Guild", will play their part in assisting Story's safe return once she has found the Vessel. Her task, however, is endangered by scrunts*, vicious beasts which blend, chameleon-like, into the long grasses surrounding the complex. Cleveland, motivated by the tragedy in his past, elects to help Story, but first has to determine which of the The Cove's residents fulfill the roles of Vessel, Guild and Healer .

Right, then. Case for the prosecution:

1) Shyamalan casts himself as the Vessel. This is essentially a Christ-like role and is therefore indicative of gross egomania on Shyamalan's part.

2) One of The Cove's residents, Harry Farber (Bob Balaban) is a movie critic and Shyamalan takes pains to paint him as a prissy, pedantic and humourless individual. This is indicative of contempt on Shyamalan's part for gentlemen of said profession, and sour grapes over negative reviews of 'The Village'.

3) The film is burdened with an incomprehensible narrative.

The prosecution calls the following expert witnesses:

Antagony & Ecstasy, who has testified that M. Night Shyamalan is an affront to art.

Brandon Fibbs testifies that it is Shyamalan's first misstep as a film-maker.

Kevin Koehler at Pretentious Musings discusses evidence that this is a director's love letter to himself.

Case for the defence:

Your honour, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I do not have a case to make for 'Lady in the Water' as a lost masterpiece, an overlooked gem, or a classic-in-waiting that is begging for re-evaluation. The film, as its creator has insisted all along, is a fairy tale. I refer to Mr. Shyamalan as the film's "creator" with good reason. As writer, producer and director on all of his projects - as a man who has yet to helm an adaptation or direct someone else's script - he personifies perhaps more than any other mainstream American director the auteur. This, I believe, exacerbates the severity of the first charge levelled against him.

Before turning to the three main areas of the prosecution's case, let us briefly consider the film's subject matter. We have already established that 'Lady in the Water' is a fairy tale; it is a mistake, however, to consider the milieu (the action never moves outside of the apartment complex) as the real world into which the fairy tale elements (quite literally) surface. 'Lady in the Water' is not realistic and is not meant to be realistic. It is a movie full of movie characters; I believe that such subtext as exists here is a send-up, by Mr. Shyamalan, on film-making and film theory, an irreverent and satirical deconstruction of established narrative tropes and structural requirements.

As regards the charges against the defendant:

1) Shyamalan as messiah/egomaniac. Given that Mr. Shyamalan had demonstrated, from 'The Sixth Sense' up to and including 'Lady in the Water', a commendable talent for drawing notable performances from first-rate casts, and given that there has never been a shortage of highly talented actors who want to work with him, he could easily have cast someone other than himself as the Vessel. Why did he choose not to? Moreover, Mr. Shyamalan has always come across, in both on-camera and print interviews, as articulate, perceptive and intelligent. Surely he would have had some inkling of the controversy that this self-casting decision would result in. And yet, ladies and gentlemen, he cast himself. Why? It is my considered opinion that Mr. Shyamalan's role in his own film is a satire on the auteur theory, and both an acknowledgement and refutation of any criticism that, as an auteur, he risks isolationism in his approach to film-making.

Furthermore, he is not the only director to cast himself in a showy and narratively important role. We call Mel Gibson, director and star of 'Braveheart' (a role which allows him to progress from romantic lead to action hero to martyr); Orson Welles in 'Touch of Evil' (seldom has a director filled the screen so completely with himself; and what of Marlene Dietrich's breathy "He was some kind of a man" epitaph?); or how about Woody Allen, star of a good couple of dozen of his own films - would Allen's nebbish protagonist copping off with a radiant Diane Keaton in 'Manhattan' be dismissed as wish-fulfillment if it weren't for their brief real-life relationship?

And doesn't the whole issue of director as actor depend on whether their performance is any good or not? Shyamalan is a low-key but quietly charismatic actor. Now look at, say, Quentin Tarantino's flashy, motormouth appearances in his own work - as Jimmie in 'Pulp Fiction' or the bartender in 'Death Proof'. A small but worthwhile consideration, I think.

2) The movie critic character. It is easy to see why Bob Balaban's portrayal of Harry Farber is something of a red rag to a bull. But pause should be given to consider a couple of points. Firstly, Balaban is terrific. He takes a potentially one-note role and turns it into a tour de force of deadpan comedy. A lot of things get overlooked in critical treatments of 'Lady in the Water': just how good Balaban is, is one of them. Secondly, Harry is not just a movie critic, he's a movie character. Ultimately - and again, this simple fact is often conveniently overlooked - 'Lady in the Water' is a movie movie. Let's establish a quick definition.

Tarantino once said something to the effect that while 'Reservoir Dogs' and 'Pulp Fiction' were movies, the 'Kill Bill' duology (is that the right word? did I just make it up? whatever) were movie movies; that if the characters from 'Dogs' or 'Pulp' decided to go and see a movie, then 'Kill Bill' was the kind of movie they'd go and see. 'Kill Bill', therefore, is a movie that exists solely within the perameters of movie logic, where a vengeful woman can take a samurai sword aboard a plane as hand luggage, where the aesthetic can bend elastically to Eastern cinema and the whole "heroic bloodshed" subgenre or to the expansive vistas of the spaghetti western purely at the film-maker's whim. Shifts from colour to black-and-white are acceptable, as well as non-linear chronologies, hyper-stylisations and basically an entire bag of cinematic tricks. And Tarantino is feted for it. What do we make of this, ladies and gentlemen? It seems that Tarantino is permitted to make movie movies while Shyamalan isn't.

'Lady in the Water' is a movie movie. Harry is there to highlight this - cueing Cleveland's gradual understanding of the narrative he's found himself complicit in - as well as sending the whole thing up. Harry reminds us, right up to his stand-out final face-off with a scrunt - that this is just a movie.

3) Incomprehensible narrative. Or is it? It's an offbeat narrative, sure, but - hey! - Shyamalan's telling an offbeat story. And, once more, he's doing so in a deconstructive manner. He takes traditional narrative requirements and turns them upside down. For instance: a character is called up to decipher something; the resulting message gives the protagonist another piece of information, therefore the plot advances. In, say, 'Raiders of the Lost Ark', Harrison Ford directs a beam of sunlight onto some arcane markings on a dusty stone floor; in 'The Da Vinci Code', Tom Hanks blathers on about the Fibonacci sequence and gets his head round a couple of infantile riddles. How the codes/clues/messages are worked out is unimportant: these scenes are about (a) making the hero look cool because they figured it out, and (b) moving the film's narrative from point A to point B. So when, in 'Lady in the Water', a little kid divines a hidden message in the colours of a cupboard full of cereal boxes, not only is it no less arbitrary than in either of those other films, but Shyamalan is actually admitting, satirically, how arbitrary such narrative devices truly are. This brings us back to the fact that it's just a movie. It does what a lot of movies do - and has no more complex a narrative than most movies - it just does these things in a deliberately deconstructed manner.

But doesn't all of this make 'Lady in the Water' an exercise in anti-film-making? Maybe so. But I must admit, having recently watched it for the third time, that I find 'Lady in the Water' a relatively entertaining film. It's not without its flaws - there is too much of the hushed, portentous dialogue that stymies 'Signs' and 'The Village'; there is a directorial heavy-handedness in dealing with 'meaningful' themes; the healing scene just plain doesn't work - but it has its share of pleasures, not least a terrific cast obviously having fun with their movie movie characters. Christopher Doyle's cinematography nails the slightly off-kilter atmosphere crucial to the non-realistic movieness of the film. After the solemnity of his earlier films, the playfulness of 'Lady in the Water' is a pleasant change; and - best of all given the flogging-a-dead-horse inclusion of it in 'The Village' - there's no frickin' twist ending.

Finally, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, here, at random, are a few mainstream films I've seen in the two years since 'Lady in the Water' opened, all of which, I think you'll agree, are egregiously bad examples of film-making: 'Next', 'Ultraviolet', the aforementioned 'Da Vinci Code' and the piss-awful 'Wicker Man' remake, none of which I'd waste my time on with a second viewing. And yet Lee Tamahori, Kurt Wimmer, Ron Howard and Neil LaBute received none of the vitriol that was directed at Shymalan for 'Lady in the Water'.

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, the decision is yours. But I for one do not believe that 'Lady in the Water' deserves the hate. It's just a movie.


*And depending on your knowledge of low-brow colloquialisms, you might raise an eyelid at how ill-chosen the name is.

The Village

On 20th August 2004, I took my seat in Nottingham's UGC (now Cineworld) for a screening of 'The Village'. My mood: high anticipation. I'd rationalised 'Signs' as one of those occasional dips in quality that all artists are entitled to, and was confident 'The Village' would prove a return to form. There had been plenty of advance publicity. The trailers were creepy as hell. The cast was to die for: William Hurt, Sigourney Weaver, Brendan Gleeson, Joaquin Phoenix, Adrien Brody ... Oh,yes, I was looking forward to this one!

An hour and three quarters later, as I wrote in my maiden post as a blogger, I stumbled out of the cinema mumbling vehemently. I felt that I had to get on my soapbox and sound off.

That soapbox was MovieBuff, my first blog. And here I am, four years later, in my third incarnation on the blogosphere, revisiting one of the most disappointing, dispiriting experiences I've had a in movie theatre (perhaps only rivalled by 'The Departed', Scorsese's flabby, tired, by-the-numbers desecration of the taut Asian thriller 'Infernal Affairs', and - yes - 'The Happening'). But let's remain in the past for a moment. Here's the rest of the article I wrote on 'The Village':

I will not spoil the film for those who have not seen it. The obligatory twist ending will remain under wraps (one clue: ten minutes in, a snippet of dialogue betrays a specifically modern context). Suffice it to say that the final quarter of the film turns everything that has gone before on its head, revealing more than an hour's worth of sumptuous and beautifully acted film-making as little more than obfuscation; a cheap parlour trick.

It doesn't help that trailers and advertising site the film firmly in the horror genre. Nothing could be further from the truth. The first full appearance of the creatures in the woods (or the creature, singular; only one of them actually shows up) provoked disdainful giggles from most of the audience. The revelation as to their identity elicited groans.

M Night Shyamalan is too intelligent a director, too consummate a craftsman, for 'The Village' to be dismissed as a bad film. Nonetheless, this hasn't prevented me from wanting to wallop him and ask for my money back. There are many good things on display: the quality of acting is uniformly high, the cinematography gorgeous and the music atmospheric (the acclaimed American violinist Hilary Hahn features prominently on the soundtrack). The frustrating thing is that these elements are bound up in the first three-quarters of the film; once Shyamalan reveals his hand, the audience is forced to dismiss all of these things as a con job. In short, the payoff kills the movie stone dead.

All that remains is the poignant and bravura performance by Bryce Dallas Howard (daughter of director and former 'Happy Days' alumnus Ron Howard). Her star-making turn can only be compared to seeing Kate Winslet for the first time in 'Heavenly Creatures'.

Ms Howard's glittering career starts here. Sadly, so does the M Night Shyamalan backlash.

Fast forward to a couple of hours ago. I'd made the decision from the outset to rewatch all of Shyamalan's films in order. It was, I felt, the only way objectively to assess the man's career to date. Between me and Paula's respective DVD collections, we had all of his films ... except 'The Village'. And I wasn't going to shell out for a copy, even a cheapie off eBay. I asked around and finally a colleague gave me a lend.

I squared up to it. I had a bottle of wine to hand. I consoled myself that there was a big pile of ironing to be done while I was watching it, so at least the evening wouldn't be wasted. I told a deep breath and slid the DVD into the player.

"Cannot read disc."

You're never supposed to use the deus ex machina in fiction. It's a nice little added bonus, then, when one happens in real life.

One day, I'm sure, I'll see 'The Village' again. If, on that day, I realise that I was wrong all along and it's a masterpiece awaiting rediscovery, then I'll revisit the Shyamalan-a-thon and publically admit it.

Signs

To everyone who lambasted M. Night Shyamalan for egomania and self-importance over 'Lady in the Water', I would say this:

Watch 'Signs'.

For all that Shyamalan wrote himself a role in which he functions as MacGuffin, messiah and hero by default in 'Lady in the Water' - or, as Tim at Antagony & Ecstacy puts it "cast himself as Christ" - a case can be made for that film as satirical comedy. My reading of 'Lady in the Water' has always tended to the film as anti-film, a deliberate subversion/parody of structure, narrative and film theory ... so why not go the whole hog and indulge/mock the egocentricity inherent in the auteur theory of film-making?

But this is a discussion for two posts in the future ... and can't you tell that I really can't be bothered to write about 'Signs'?

The more I think about it, I realise this Shyamalan-a-thon delineates, like Jacobean tragedy, into three acts:

Act One: Shyamalan as the next big thing ('The Sixth Sense', 'Unbreakable')

Act Two: in which a sense of disappointment emerges ('Signs', 'The Village')

Act Three: the torch-bearing mob demand our beleagured hero's head on a film canister ('Lady in the Water', 'The Happening')

It's almost scary, how cleanly - clinically, even - a six-film career bends to the three downward points of this critical arc. But having said that, I'm quite looking forward to my role as Ye Olde Critick in Act Three, mainly because I don't believe that one of these particular films quite deserves the hate while the other isn't quite hated enough.

And yes, I'm prevaricating again. Because I don't want to write about 'Signs'. Even 'The Village' is freighted with a certain significance, given that it prompted my earliest efforts in blogging. But that's a story for the next post. Right now I'm going to get 'Signs' out of the way. Over and done with. Filed, archived, boxed up and -

Oh, for fuck's sake, Neil, just write about the movie already!

Okay: 'Signs' is about a preacher, Graham Hess (Mel Gibson), who loses his faith after his wife is killed in a car crash (driver: M. Night in his obligatory cameo role ... makes his Christ-like role in 'Lady in the Water' even more ironic, given that he's pretty much playing the devil, or at least one of his minions, here); and about how God gets said preacher back on the home team by having aliens invade earth, wreak havoc and almost kill his son.

Now, a drama about the loss of faith or the reaffirmation thereof is one thing (even though I'm an atheist, I don't deny the dramatic potential of such material); but not when it's a flashback to the agonisingly slow and lachrymose death of Hess's wife that gives him the clue he needs to defeat the alien*; not when the means to defeat the alien is laboriously set up in any number of earlier scenes and is as arbitrary as the invaders' death by the common cold in H.G. Wells's 'War of the Worlds' ... shit, if you're going to come up with patently stupid ways to kill martians, at least go wild like Tim Burton did in 'Mars Attacks' and have their heads explode at the sound of Slim Whitman records - at least be funny!

And in some of its earlier scenes, 'Signs' almost succeeds in becoming (an intended) comedy: Joaquin Phoenix in particular, as Hess's brother Merrill, a could-have-been baseball star now merrily idling his life away, provides some fantastic moments. And speaking of Phoenix's performance, 'Signs' again demonstrates Shyamalan's facility with actors: Gibson does probably his best work, while Rory Culkin and Abigail Breslin are a million miles away from the standard annoyingly-cute-kids-who-you-secretly-wish-would-die-horribly so beloved of Hollywood. Breslin already shines, four years before her astounding portrayal of the beauty paegant obsessed young girl in 'Little Miss Sunshine'.

Too, the film looks good. DoP Tak Fujimoto exploits the rural setting to impressive visual effect. In the director's chair, Shyamalan crafts several tense set-pieces (his Hitchcockian ability to create suspense has yet to be deployed to its fullest: I'd love to see what he'd make of a thriller or a murder mystery). His decision to keep the aliens offscreen as much as possible pays dividends: early glimpses come courtesy of shaky hand-held camcorder footage; even the final, full appearance of the vengeful alien is staged so that it is mostly seen in reflection.

'Signs' had a lot of potential to be a bloody good film. It damn near makes it in several places.

And yet ... and yet ...

The humour dries up and is replaced with hushed, "meaningful" dialogue; the uber-talky mid-section locks away all the carefully orchestrated tension from earlier in the film and concentrates, instead, on a cinematic equivalent of navel-gazing; the self-important reverence of the finale - and specifically of the final shot - leaves me feeling that the film-makers have purposefully denied the audience enough emotional or cerebral room to engage with this film should they, like me, be of the opinion that there is no god.



*I use the singular because the vanguard of the alien invasion has buggered off back wherever they came from at this point and just one grey-skinned Roswell-boy remains - this renegade is out for revenge given that the preacher chopped his fingers off in an earlier scene (I guess it says "forgive thy neighbour" not "forgive thy cosmic visitor", but still: such behaviour from a former man of the cloth!)

Interrupting the Shyamalan-a-thon ...

... which, frankly, I’ve been procrastinating over. I watched ‘Signs’ last weekend and have been implementing blogging-avoidance strategies ever since – and with only the pompous seriousness and house-of-cards twist of ‘The Village’ on the horizon, my motivation isn’t just ebbing but doing a pretty good impersonation of a fully-fledged drought.

But, still … interrupting the Shyamalan-a-thon:

Kudos to the BBC for last night’s ‘Imagine’ documentary on Werner Herzog. A joy to see Alan Yentob, who frequently puts himself at the centre of the programme (he all but elbowed the – admittedly reclusive – Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami out of the picture in last week’s programme), getting put in his place by the great director. “As a German living in Hollywood – ” Yentob begins, only for Herzog to correct him on two counts: he’s Bavarian and he lives in LA, not Hollywood. There is a difference.

The documentary itself was a bit scattershot, trying to reference too many of Herzog’s films (he’s made over 50) during its 60-minute running time; nonetheless, a through-line emerged of Herzog as a chronicler of the extreme, be it extreme conditions of filming (‘Aguirre: the Wrath of God’, ‘Fitzcarraldo’) or extreme personalities (Timothy Treadwell in ‘Grizzly Man’; Klaus Kinski in every film he made for Herzog); a man whose themes, concerns and images resonate down a four-decade filmography; a man attuned to the physicality and landscapes of the locations he shoots.

The payoff was fantastic, Herzog recounting a legendary incident during the filming of ‘Aguirre’: with ten days of principle photography remaning, Kinski, in one of his archetypal bouts of mania, had packed his belongings and was ready to zoom off in a speedboat. Herzog assured him he’d be shot before he reached the first bend in the river.

Dispelling the myth that he’d spent the film directing Kinski from behind a shotgun, Herzog recalled, “I didn’t have a gun in my hand when I told him this, but he knew I meant it.” (Incidentally, Herzog speaks in a very precise manner, his tone of voice always reasoned and calm; there is not a trace of hyperbole about him.)

Yentob, briefly speechless, responded, “And you seem like a gentle man.”

“I was very gentle with Kinski,” Herzog replied, “I gave him a choice. I would not have shot him without giving him a choice.”

Wunderbar! A large glass of Riesling was raised to Herr Herzog at chez Fulwood last night.

Unbreakable: the love in continues ...

Damn near 1,000 words on 'Unbreakable' last night and I didn't even mention the look of the film, the extended takes or the performances.

Quickly, then, before I descend into the purple realms of sycophantic fan-boy prose:

1) The look of the film. Eduardo Serra's cinematography: autumnal; richly evocative of the characters' doubts and their loneliness; dark when it needs to be, but without tipping entirely into gothicism.

2) The extended takes. Further proof that Shyamalan has no interest in MTV-style cutting or show-offery. The man gives his actors space to work and the opportunity to realise the full potential of their performances. His commitment to extended takes, in 'Unbreakable' more than anywhere else, is comparable to Tarkovsky.

3) The performances:

(i) Bruce Willis builds on his introspective, controlled turn in 'The Sixth Sense' to deliver what is arguably a career best; restrained and disciplined.

(ii) Samuel L. Jackson is simply peerless. In a filmography stuffed with iconic moments (from "I don't recall asking you a goddamned thing" to "AK-47, when you absolutely positively gotta kill every motherfucker in the room, accept no substitute" to something about some motherfucking snakes on a motherfucking plane), I'm going to go out on a limb and say that he achieves his apotheosis in 'Unbreakable'.

The scene in question introduces us to Elijah. He's about to sell an incredibly rare drawing, pre-dating the first issue of the comic book the character debuted in, to a yuppie positively dripping with cash. "Jeb's gonna love this," the yuppie enthuses.

"Jeb?" Elijah repeats, an icy tone creeping into his voice. "Is this a child we're talking about?"

The yuppie affirms that, yes, the aforesaid Jeb is his young son.

Elijah rounds on him. "Do you see any Teletubbies in here? Do you see a slender plastic tag clipped to my shirt with my name printed on it? Did you see a little Asian child with a blank expression on his face sitting outside on a mechanical helicopter that shakes when you put a quarter in it? No? Well, that's what you see at a toy store. And you must think you're in a toy store, because you're here shopping for an infant named Jeb."

Samuel L. Jackson hobbling around on a cane, his bones in danger of fracture if he starches his shirts too much, and he's still being a badass, voice dripping with contempt.

And doing so without using the word 'motherfucker'.

Marvellous!

Unbreakable

Okay. I'm just going to come right out and say this:

In my humble opinion, 'Unbreakable' is M. Night Shyamalan's best film. If I wanted to be cynical, I could add that there's probably not that much competition, since 'Signs' didn't quite deliver and 'The Village' signalled a certain transition in terms of audience anticipation. You know: the moment it went from "wow, it's a new M. Night Shyamalan film, I must get me to a cinema" to "it's a new M. Night Shyamalan film, hope it's better than the last one".

But such things are easy to say in retrospect. Coming, as 'Unbreakable' did, just a year after 'The Sixth Sense', it was hard not to think of Shyamalan as the next big thing in American cinema.

If 'The Sixth Sense' was a slow-burn, character-driven, thoughtfully-directed piece of old-school film-making, then 'Unbreakable' was all of these things and more. Chief amongst its achievements is this: it stands as a weighty, intelligent, meticulously thought-out piece of work ... on the foundations of, frankly, Shyamalan's most far-fetched plot.

Now just hold it right there, buddy, I hear you cry. Surely nothing surpasses 'Lady in the Water' in terms of the just plain bonkers. Perhaps not, but 'Unbreakable' - if only in terms of narrative concept - certainly equals it. Think about it: 'Lady in the Water' is about a depressed janitor who discovers that a fairytale has come to life in the swimming pool of a residential apartment block; 'Unbreakable' is about a depressed security guard who discovers that he's actually a comic book hero.

The suspension of disbelief is just as great in either film; the difference is the way Shyamalan approaches it. 'Lady in the Water' acknowledges from the outset that a suspension of disbelief is de rigueur; it presents its story in bold strokes and primary colours; reminds us with every scene that, hey, this is just a fairy tale.

'Unbreakable' goes about things very differently. It takes as its main character a regular guy with regular problems. David Dunn (Bruce Willis) is a security guard at a football stadium, every game he patrols a reminder of the promising career he had as a sportsman in his youth prior to the car accident that consigned him forever to the humdrum existence of a troubled marriage and an awkward relationship with his son. He's introduced on a train, heading back from a job interview; the first pro-active thing he does in the entire film is surreptitiously slip off his wedding ring as an attractive woman settles into the seat next to him.

Minutes later, David experiences a moment of clarity: he senses something, knows that his life is about to change. The next we see of him, he's in hospital, a doctor bemused that not only is he the only survivor of rail accident, but he hasn't sustained even the mildest injury. His wife and son arrive at the hospital and he leaves with them before the conversation can continue.

Later, leaving a remembrance service for the victims of the crash, David finds a note under the wiper of his car asking him how many days in his life he's been ill? He raises the query at work; his boss begrudgingly offers him a rise ("clever way of asking for it"). Perplexed, he asks his wife if she's ever known him to suffer even a cold or a sore throat? Apart from two near-death experiences - one in a swimming pool as a child, the other the car accident - nothing has ever affected him, up to and including the train wreck.

The note leads David to Elijah Price (Samuel L Jackson), owner of an art shop called Limited Edition, so named for a limited edition comic book his mother gave him as a child ("they say this one has a surprise ending") as a sop to the illness that keeps him from the company of other children. Elijah has incredibly brittle bones; the smallest slip or tumble results in multiple fractures. The kids, as he reiterates momentuously at the end of the film, call him Mr Glass.

Elijah is almost a dark prophet; he chisels away at David's ennui, his surrender to a stagnant life. He asks questions that, finally, David cannot ignore or get around. His son believes Elijah from the outset and becomes dangerously convinced that David has superhuman powers. This leads to two standout scenes - one involving an exercise bench, the other a loaded gun - that are as squirmily tense as they are dramatically compelling.

Finally, David accepts who he is, and acts on it, but there is one more revelation to come ...

There are those who find the ending abrupt - and it is. But, I think, deliberately so. Shyamalan has said that his script was originally to have followed the traditional comic book three-act: the origin of the superhero, the application of his powers to the betterment of mankind, and his battle with a nemesis; but that the first act became the focus of the movie. Viewed in this light, 85% of 'Unbreakable' deals with the first act, 10% with the second and 5% with the third. Yes, the ending's abrupt, but watched a second or third time (and 'Unbreakable' definitely improves with repeated viewings), the clues are all in place. It was always heading towards that conclusion. Shyamalan's genius is to deny the catharsis of an actual climactic smack-down between superhero and nemesis.

Why? Take your pick: because he's not making a day-glo FX-laden comic book movie; because his protagonist, for all that he takes on the mantle of protector of the innocent, remains a regular guy; because the film is about the asking of questions, particularly that of one's purpose in life, and Shyamalan wants some of those questions to follow you out of the cinema.

The Sixth Sense

One of the most pleasurable cinema-going experiences is seeing a film without any prior knowledge of it, not having read a review, seen a trailer or been exposed to a single opinion. You watch with a completely open, unprejudiced mind. You get to discover the film. If it has a startling plot twist or narrative development, or a sucker-punch ending, the effect is that much more powerful.

I saw 'Seven' first time round without knowing anything other than Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman were in it, and with a Sunday afternoon to kill, that was good enough for me. I remember checking out the poster in the cinema's foyer, squinting to read the director's name. David who? I wondered, and went and got my ticket and took my seat.

An ex-colleague told me he watched 'From Dusk Till Dawn' without the slightest inkling that it was going to turn into a vampire movie at the half-way mark. No idea! I wish I could have experienced it like that.

With 'The Sixth Sense', all I knew was that it had paranormal subject matter and there was a twist ending. Even knowing that was knowing too much. As the opening credits rolled, I thought to myself: Right, then, let's see if I can second guess it. Ten minutes later I was thinking to myself -

SPOILER ALERT!

- Yeah, got it: Brucie's a ghost. And spent the rest of the movie being proved right. And didn't take much away with me when I left the cinema. A friend of mine has a diametrically opposite memory of his first viewing of 'The Sixth Sense': the twist blown by a blabbermouth DJ as he listened to the car radio while driving to the cinema.

Watching 'The Sixth Sense' for maybe only the third time over the weekend, I re-evaluated it and found myself wishing, like my friend, that I'd known the ending from the off. That way I could have saved myself a wasted two hours playing smartarse and being disappointed when the film-makers didn't deliver something beyond my educated guess. I could have appreciated how finely nuanced the performances are and what a generous actor Bruce Willis is in his scenes with Haley Joel Osmont, letting his young co-star set the pace; playing off him. How brilliantly Toni Collette nails the harrassed, nervy single mother, portraying not only her character's stressed brittleness, but her desperate affection for her troubled son. Alongside 'Japanese Story', this represents the finest work she has done onscreen.

I could have appreciated how atmospherically shot it is, Tak Fujimoto's autumnal cinematography setting the tone; Shyamalan's use of colours as clues remaining just the right side of clever-cleverness.

I could have appreciated how restrained and confident the direction is, Shyamalan taking his time establishing character and setting. If there's anything that redeems even his lousiest films (because, oh, the mighty was soon to fall!) it's his commitment to slow, calm, studied pacing. Compared to the frenetic MTV-style of chopping and splicing so beloved of that Satan of contemporary cinema Michael Bay - the venal epitome of a generation of directors who cut their teeth making music videos - Shyamalan's approach to film-making is thoughtful; careful. Old school.

Fortunately, over the weekend, I sat back and appreciated all of these things. And believe me, when I slid the DVD into the player, my thoughts were along the lines of: Right, then, let's see if this is really as good as its adoring aficionados make out. I now find myself thinking that, yes, it is. But not for the reason that most people remember it. The twist ending is the least thing 'The Sixth Sense' has to offer. Watch it for its craftsmanship; for what it says about family, memory and human frailty.

The Not Happening

Wow! And I thought I didn't like 'The Happening'.

Lou Kije has started a site, The Not Happening, dedicated to encouraging audiences to walk out of the film, protest its dire shortcomings and petition Rupert Murdoch for their money back.

This is not just shouty prozelytising. Mr Kije writes as a film fan, a man who has watched thousands of movies and has now - for the first time in his life - felt compelled to walk out of a cinema.

His postings are lucid, intelligent and basically take an objectively-wielded scalpel to Shyamalan's movie.

I feel kinship with Mr Kije - I started my first film blog, MovieBuff, after I was so incensed by 'The Village' that I needed a platform to fulminate. Hence this post: visit The Not Happening. Leave a comment if you agree.

Do not go gentle into that good Night

Okay, Neil, write out one hundred times: "I did not start this blog to slag off movies."

I did not start this blog to slag off movies.

I did not start this blog to slag off movies.

I did not start this blog to slag off movies.

I did not start this blog to slag off movies.

I did not -

Oh, screw it!

I went to see 'The Happening' this afternoon, and I'm not happy. I'll tell you how unhappy I am. I'm unhappy enough that I almost titled this post 'This Happening's just not happening, dude'. That's how unhappy.

I could easily type up a checklist right now, an enumeration of all the things that don't work about the film - from the appalling dialogue to the wonky acting by way of Tak Fujimoto's curiously lacklustre cinematography - but that would only skim the surface.

What really annoys me is that it could have - should have - been so much better. Here's an example: Zooey Deschanel's leaden line-reading of "Just when you thought there couldn't be any more evil that could be invented" (a howlingly awful sentence) while the camera frames her in a bland, unflattering composition. Let's break these elements down: Deschanel is one of those captivatingly attractive actresses who isn't merely pretty - there's something radiant about her. For a lensman to make her look dowdy takes a special (lack of) talent. Yet Tak Fujimoto is the man who shot 'Something Wild' and 'The Silence of the Lambs'. Bad dialogue notwithstanding, Deschanel's performance throughout is wooden - and yet she's vibrant and sassy in, say, 'The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'.

And if I've not mentioned the bad dialogue enough already, here's one more go-around: 'The Happening' is indubitably the clunkiest script M. Night Shyamalan has ever written, eclipsing even the breezeblock-like exposition of 'The Village' ("he found one of the suits we kept under the floorboards"). And yet Shyamalan's screenplays for 'The Sixth Sense' and 'Unbreakable' develop their themes with subtlety and sureness of touch.

The people involved in this film have talent. Granted, Shyamalan's career has pretty much defined 'up and down', but for all his tendencies to self-indulgence he is quite obviously an intelligent man; and at his best, a highly capable film-maker. I'm hesitant even to criticise him for self-indulgence. Quentin Tarantino is the very embodiment of directorial self-indulgence and the same critics who are quick to knock Shyamalan are just as eager to laud Tarantino.

Subject of which, an argument can be made for both men delivering their best work with their first two features (if, that is, we discount the little-seen 'Praying With Anger' and 'Wide Awake' (shelved by Miramax for three years) and count 'The Sixth Sense' as Shyamalan's debut).

So, before I take my axe and get to work on 'The Happening', I'm going to revisit M. Night Shyamalan's previous work. Is 'The Sixth Sense' the masterpiece many would have it? Could 'Unbreakable' be his best film to date? Were the first warning signs there in, well, 'Signs'? What's the connection between 'The Village' and my debut as a blogger? Is 'The Lady in the Water' really the disaster everybody has it? Will I find anything positive to say about 'The Happening'?

The Shyamalan-a-thon starts tomorrow.

There will be spoilers.