The Village vs The Others

I swear to God, in The Village, there's a shed no one is supposed to go into, and it's called “The Old Shed that is Not to be Used.” It's a shed. With a name. Now, when someone tells me not to look in a shed, all I can think about is when can I be alone so I can go rummaging through that old shed. But in The Village, everyone obeys. Why do the children of The Village not go into The Shed? Well, because the script demands that they don't. Every home in The Village has a black lockbox in the corner of the living room, but no one asks, and no one sneaks a peak, not because they aren't curious, but because it's not time yet. That happens later in the movie, see, and even if it's implausible that it never came up before, well, you stop asking questions, Mr. Questiony, or you'll be put in the Quiet Room. Whatever you do, don't look under the floorboards.

The Village is the latest movie from M. Night Shyamalan. It fits squarely into his usual template of moodiness and twists and throws in a touch of “Wow, that's silly” for good measure. There's a point near the end of every M. Night Shyamalan movie, when dialogue from the beginning of the movie is used to show us the main character is Learning Something. Bruce Willis is dead, Samuel L. Jackson is an evil mastermind, Mel Gibson's wife thinks baseball is important. The same tactic is used near the end of The Village, but it's merely in the service of a lie. Instead of “It was true all along; I just wasn't listening,” we get “Oh, didn't I tell you that? I thought I had. Oh well, bye.” And that's a shame, because much of The Village is intriguing.

This time, the action centers on a small village in the late…1800s? I have no idea. No one ever says. There's a funeral at the beginning of the movie, and apparently there's a year on a tombstone, but I forgot to look. It's a Shyamalan movie, so by now we should know to start looking for clues during the opening credits. Judging by the clothing and homes, I'd say the movie is set around the same time as Little House on the Prairie, so that puts it, what? 1910? 1978? Help me out here.

The community is set up sort of like a cross between Witness and the town in Big Fish where no one wore shoes. Everyone in The Village eats together (on long tables outside with tons of food), and while each family has an individual house, there's not much to distinguish them from anyone else. I'm pretty sure you could wander into the wrong house and it wouldn't matter much. I'm not sure what anyone does for a living in The Village, or if they have to do anything. It's confusing. Is sweeping the porch a job? How about moping around? If so, two happy girls have the first job, and the second is done by EVERYBODY ELSE. Seriously, that is one somber community. Maybe it's because of Those We Do Not Speak Of.

That's right, my friends. The Village is surrounded, by…something. Something is out there, watching. The elders have several rules for living in The Village. Number one: Don't talk about The Village. Wait. No leaving The Village. We're told that the woods surrounding the village lead to “The Towns”, but in between the Village and the Towns are the Creatures, and the Creatures have very strict guidelines. They don't want you in the woods, and they don't want to see the Bad Color. The Bad Color is red, by the way. Yellow is a safe color, even if it's less flattering for girls with freckles.

For the most part, the Villagers obey. They have torches and towers to keep watch during the night, and during the day, there is, well, there's socializing, and maybe gardening, or something. It's all business as usual, until Lucius (Joaquin Phoenix) decides he'd like to go to town. He presents his case, reading carefully, before the Village Elders, played by William Hurt, Sigourney Weaver, Brendan Gleeson, Cherry Jones, Celia Weston and a couple others. They're mostly good, especially considering they're speaking in this weird mock-Pilgrim language, and are rarely anything other than paranoid. Each of them speaks as if they were concentrating really hard on speaking the way they're speaking. Weird, but also compelling. When Weaver says “I am but worried for my only son,” you get the idea that she's sending some sort of code. William Hurt is even more specific with this tactic, reciting his lines as if they were inscribed on greeting cards. Cheap, boxed greeting cards from someone he doesn't like that much. They don't like the idea of Lucius going into the woods, and soon enough, they're proven right. Those We Do Not Speak Of raid the Village, marking the doors with red paint (or blood?) and killing what appears to be the Taco Bell Chihuahua.

Amid all of this, The Village finds its footing somewhat, in a love story between Lucius and Ivy (Bryce Dallas Howard). Ivy's older sister (Judy Greer, who surprised me by not having her lazy eye from Arrested Development, and also by not being killed in the woods in the first twenty minutes) has a serious crush on Lucius, but he loves Ivy, a secret he tries to guard. Ivy is blind, but she can see a color around Lucius (it's nice, but don't pay it much mind. Lucius's color never comes up. Put that in the “not a clue” column.) They have several scenes that are funny and sweet, and one on a porch at night that is moving and romantic in a way that three hours of Titanic failed to be for me. As Ivy, Bryce Dallas Howard is what movie critics might call a revelation. The Village is her debut, but you'd never know it. Howard is beautiful in The Village, in every sense of the word. Phoenix is good too. His performance is almost completely silent, with the aforementioned  porch scene being his strongest, even though he never rises above a whisper and keeps his back to the camera the bulk of the time. It's too bad he…never mind.

The Village tries way too hard though, to keep its surprises, and is constantly tip-toeing around things that would be fine undiscovered, or maybe revealed slowly, but instead turn laughable, like what the village idiot (Adrien Brody, clapping and drooling and picking forbidden berries) finds under the floor. Why would it ever be there, and who besides Brody's character could accidentally stumble upon it? And how does he know what to do with it, and how to be in just the right place later? What does he stumble upon, you ask? No. You may not. That is the Question that Must Not Be Asked. Also not to be asked is, “Why would you send a blind girl on such an important errand?” And “If red is the color the bad guys hate, why is that also the color they wear?” And are the female elders okay with their role in the village? And, if you could pick a way to speak, would it be one of doths and hastes and constantly having to call people by their first and last names? Wait, that last question might be a spoiler. Sorry.

The Village, I should note, is beautifully filmed and staged. The Ones We Do Not Speak Of are used only in passing at first, and at times are only heard. There's a brilliant moment when Ivy stands, blindly holding her hand out for Lucius, and we don't know if he'll make it before One of the Ones We Do Not Speak of get to her first. There's also a scene about half way through, between Phoenix and Brody, that is just about perfectly realized and is the true shock of the movie. I was left with my mouth hanging open for most of the scene, which says a lot for a movie that had me rolling my eyes before and after.

Like The Village, The Others is a movie that depends desperately on its rules not being broken. While the cast of The Village is scared only during a crisis, and then fine immediately following, The Others depends on the sadness and fear of its characters and setting to carry the story until the surprise kicks in, proving itself the stronger movie. The Others is a fragile puzzle of a movie, one of almost unbearable paranoia and fear. Like Shyamalan's best movies, it practically demands a second viewing, one that reveals surprising depths.

Early in the movie, Grace (Nicole Kidman) explains that her children are photo-sensitive, and must not be allowed into the sun. In fact, her house must remain dark at all times; the curtains must always be closed and rooms are to be locked. (It's like she's raising Gremlins.) If you pass from one room to another, lock the door behind you. That's a particularly creepy rule, since we know this is a haunted house movie. At some point, you figure somebody's gonna be running through the house, and unlocking and relocking doors is going to slow them down. There are a lot of doors.

Grace is living alone in a huge house just after World War II. Her husband is either missing or dead, and she's having trouble keeping help. Imagine that. One day, the staff just leaves, and something odd happens: the previous staff returns. Miss Mills is in charge of the house and kitchen; Sylvia, a strange mute girl, is there to be creepy and probably dry dishes; and Mr. Tuttle tends to the gardening. With a staff in place, Grace can get back to her day-to-day business of headaches, religion and disciplining her children, whom you would think had enough problems already.

And something…strange is happening. A piano plays itself. Doors are locked or unlocked when they shouldn't be. There are voices. Grace's children are making friends with another boy…WHO DOESN'T LIVE IN THE HOUSE. The Others looks and sounds like a movie filmed in 1940, in a good way. As in The Village, the big moments are dictated by the script, rather than by visual effects. The Others is almost achingly slow-paced, as we wonder whether Grace is crazy, or haunted, or both.

Nicole Kidman is perfectly cast as Grace. She looks and sounds exactly like actresses from the 1940s, and there isn't a single moment in The Others when I didn't believe that she was this woman. I'm not sure what Kidman's experience with haunted houses is, or what the mood on the set was, but as Grace, her fear is absolutely palpable. There were times when I wasn't very scared, but was still uncomfortable because she seems terrified. The panicked way she rips dust covers off of old furniture, the strict voice she uses for prayer, and her table banging, child hugging, “This-house-is-ours-This-house-is-ours” moments at the end, all add up to one hell of a performance. When Nicole Kidman won her Oscar a couple years ago, it wouldn't surprise me if several votes were cast as retribution for skipping The Others.

By the time The Others reveals its big Shyamalan-level secret, it's not the head-slapper that his surprises often are, but rather a realization that The Others plays the same way with or without its secret. The Big Reveal at the end is the payoff, to be sure, but watch The Others again, and you'll find that already knowing the surprise doesn't spoil the movie much at all, in fact giving new weight to scenes that seemed inconsequential before.

For example, at one point, Grace is visited by her missing husband, in a strange, awkward scene. Watching the movie again, knowing what we know, we come to understand that he knows too, and possibly, this is what The Others has been about all along, if we would just look a little closer. Maybe The Village would benefit from a second viewing as well. How about we wait until the DVD release for that, okay?

The Village: C+
The Others: A-