I'm an MNS fan, and my ranking is a little different than most:
1. The Sixth Sense - For the fact that it was his first major film and it was simply brilliant. Even knowing that there was a twist coming, I was awestruck by the end.
2. Unbreakable - I'm a fan of the comic book films (most times), and I thought that this picture was an excellent "response" from a very interesting director. There is no "superhero" movie like it.
3. Signs - As a man of faith and an "armchair" theologian, I see as many of these kinds of movies as I can: Signs ranks with Contact as one of my favourite cinematic quests of faith.
4. The Village - Beautiful.
* Because Lady in the Water was so poorly received, I've been reluctant to even see it, for fear that it will undermine my whole impression of Shyamalan.
I think I tend to really enjoy his movies because there are a couple of things unique to all of them. Some of them have already been noted in this thread: Shyamalan directs and frames things very well, but there are some specific elements that I tend to look for and am usually not disappointed:
• He makes exceptional use of colour: Many of his movies have a sort of drab appearance, but I think this is one of the ways in which he tends to highlight colour throughout. The way red was used in The Sixth Sense, and the varieties of purple and green in Unbreakable come most vividly to mind here.
• Shyamalan's characters all tend to be very understated, and I think his actors tend to get a bit of a bad rap for it. I think it is purposeful, and I wonder aloud if this is his way of preserving a sense of realism in his films.
• He doesn't depend on spectacle, even in those films that deal with the spectacular. One of my few criticisms of Shyamalan is that in Signs, we actually saw the alien in the final scene. I still loved the scene, but I think I would have loved it even more if the alien remained concealed. In Unbreakable, Bruce Willis's superhero and "Mr. Glass" were both spectacular beings in their own way, but without the rippling muscles, flaming eyes, capes, leather, tights and body armour that protagonists and villains in other superhero films need to drive the plot.
• Shyamalan has an atypical sense of "evil"—for lack of a better word. Who poisons her already sick child? Or what sort of person rings a doorbell before invading a home? I think Shyamalan has some strange phobias, and they intrigue me.
|