Power of Deception

I finally watched The Village last night even after hearing several mixed opinions about it. I didn't know what to expect since I avoided hearing or reading any reviews about it. Since "The Sixth Sense" I've always enjoyed M. Night Shyamalan's movies because of his plot twists and the use of fear to create in depth character studies on human conscience, religion, and cultural beliefs. I didn't want anyone to spoil this for me before I got to the theater. Was I disappointed like everyone else? At first I was, but after giving the movie more thought I realize that Shyamalan is a writing genius.

SKIP THIS PARAGRAPH IF YOU DON'T WANT TO KNOW ABOUT THE MOVIE! The movie is centered on a community created by a set of "elders" who have family members that were victims of crimes in modern society. The group created the village to protect their own from the so called ills of society and created the myths of "those we don't speak of" so that the other villagers would be afraid to venture out into the woods and discover the real world. So with that being the main twist of the story, I know most people are saying "That's it?!". I think that the plot works and gets it's point across if you watch it with an open mind and if you see the parallelism between what Shyamalan made his characters do and what he makes the audience feel. A great key to this was how the film was marketed. The film was marketed as a horror movie and before the projector starts rolling you already feel some sense of fear. The trailers never give much information on what the villagers "don't speak of" so we are conditioned to be afraid and in the end we find out that its all just a great love story. The "elders" in the movie use the power of fear and deception to control the minds of the other villagers and Shyamalan uses the same with the audience. Everything that we are made to believe is not exactly as it appears; Everything that we create as a solution will eventually replicate the things we run away from. In The Village, Shyamalan created a community where crime shouldn't exist but eventually does, and he created a story where audiences are not supposed to be afraid but we are.

See it for yourself.