Review #769 - Signs (2002)
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Review #769 |
Director: M. Night Shyamalan
Cast: Mel Gibson, Joaquin Phoenix, Rory Culkin, Abigail Breslin
Plot: A family living on a farm finds mysterious crop circles in their fields which suggests something more frightening to come.
Genre: Drama/Mystery/Sci-Fi/Thriller
Awards: -
Runtime: 106min
Rating: PG for some frightening moments.
TRAILER:
OST:
IN RETROSPECT
“There is no one looking out for us. We
are all alone.”
Much have been said about
director M. Night Shyamalan’s decline over the last decade. His output in
recent years may have been patchy with films such as Lady in the Water (2006) and The Happening (2008), and of course a dud of a movie called The Last Airbender (2010).
But he is still
responsible for some excellent films like the underrated Unbreakable (2000) and the popular culture phenomenon The Sixth Sense (1999). My point is that
Shyamalan is not a one-trick pony, and I believe given the right material and
creative freedom, he will find form in due time because he has the talent to do
so.
Signs, one of his best works,
deserves more recognition. It is also misunderstood as a horror film with
aliens. Signs is more than that – it
is an unconventional film about faith and family using elements of
science-fiction and horror to draw viewers into a uniquely presented story.
Mel Gibson stars as Graham
Hess, a priest who has left church following a loss of faith after he loses his
wife in a tragic accident. His children, Morgan (Rory Culkin) and Bo (Abigail
Breslin), live together with him and his brother Merrill (Joaquin Phoenix). One
day, they discover large crop circles on their farm, and soon mysterious events
occur as they try to survive what seems like an imminent alien attack.
Shyamalan’s eschews
fast-paced and exciting action for a slower, more suspenseful ride. Signs is never meant to be a
blockbuster; it is an intimate look at themes that concern our existence. Faith
and family are explored interconnectedly as they shine a light on hope and the
will to survive.
That being said,
Shyamalan’s film can be regarded as a genuinely effective exercise in suspense
filmmaking. There are a few jump scares that are accompanied by the director’s
trademark marriage of sound design and music, most evidently in the quite
famous ‘Birthday Party’ news footage that continues to chill me to the bone in
the umpteen viewing.
Shyamalan has always been
a creative manipulator of the camera. Here, together with cinematographer Tak
Fujimoto (Badlands, 1973; Silence of the Lambs, 1991; The Sixth Sense), he moves the camera
around deliberately, almost always in long takes.
He draws much of the
tension from his placement of the camera, the use of lighting, and the building
up of the film’s atmosphere of unpredictability and dread through James Newton
Howard’s creepily brilliant score that echoes Bernard Hermann’s music for Psycho (1960). The final act in the basement
and the subsequent climax in the house is a showcase of Shyamalan’s talent as a
filmmaker.
Shyamalan even dares to
insert a flashback sequence in the climax that ordinarily would have caused
massive pacing problems in any film, yet the end result only makes the drama
richer, and the characters more motivated to act in certain ways.
Some viewers have derided
the film’s ‘twist ending’. All I have to say is that it is merely a revelation rather
than a twist. There was a time when Shyamalan’s name was synonymous with ‘twist
endings’, the latter often unfairly used as a barometer to judge the quality of
his films.
Signs suffered from this when it
was first released. Now a decade later, there ought to be a renewed
appreciation for the film. It remains to be one of Shyamalan’s best works, and
in my opinion, one of the most suspenseful films of the 2000s.
GRADE: A-
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