(Casting in) films

Visiting the Observer’s website this gently grey lunchtime, I was confronted by what I thought was a link to an article but was actually a survey: is Tom Cruise better cast as a goodie or a baddie?

Well, aside from his work as an actor often thankfully dragging him away from his weak–minded, and frankly quite insane adoption of Scientology as a significant influence on the way he practises his life, I reckon that he is better cast as the stereotype he can play intuitively: the flawed goodie. In Eyes Wide Shut, he was a high–powered doctor unable to truly understand his relationship with his wife. Which was pretty much mirrored in reality. ;o) But anyway. On to a film which I saw a couple of nights ago.

The Village, directed by M. Night Shyamalan, is what I can best describe as an atmosphere–piece on the nature of our fear of the unknown. Conventionally, it’s also a thriller, and builds its tension slowly.

Set around the early to mid 1800s, it presents an isolated, almost trappist community in rural America, a small village called Covington whose inhabitants are wary of venturing outside their cleared lands and into the woods for fear of the creatures there. The way it’s filmed and shot, the white–painted clapboard houses which are huddled towards each other in their misty fields seem unenduring, as if they could disappear into thin air at any moment.

And this is the fear of the villagers — that their carefully–built society must be protected. Not only from “Those we don’t speak of” in the woods, but also from the daredevil tactics of a few young men whose games near the woods will anger the creatures therein, and imperil the place’s security. (In a sequence made particularly terrifying because of what we don’t quite see, the creatures move eerily through the village at night, leaving warning–marks on the doors to be discovered in the morning. Shyamalan really makes the audience feel as threatened and polluted as the villagers must be.)

The Elders are perhaps the best–cast group of actors in this refined celluloid tableau: Brendan Gleeson is superb as a troubled, gently sardonic, but oddly worldly village leader (those italics are there for a reason), and William Hurt plays the oddly calm leading Elder who ultimately kickstarts the trademark ‘Shyamalan Twist’ - that overturning of all our expectations in order to explain everything that’s happened. And what a twist it is!

Not wanting to provide blatant spoilers, I’ll move to a few final observations / worries: Joaquin Phoenix and Adrien Brody are miscast. Phoenix should never have been in this film in the first place - it’s not that he annoys, but rather that he doesn’t add anything to the experience. Adrien Brody, on the other hand, is an actor whose talents extend far beyond the narrow confines of his gibbering, ‘Village idiot’ character, and as such he’s wasted.

In this film I see Shyamalan moving away from the refreshing and demanding single–character–centricity of his earlier work, and towards a more general tableau of tension. It’s good to see his trademark colour–coding is still present. And this time, his cameo appearance thankfully doesn’t intrude too much. ;o) Heh.

So, for making a film which chillingly [spoilers ahead!] and intelligently examines the ways in which fear of the unknown can influence us all, especially modern–dayAmerica!, and for making it more metaphorical than goosebumpy, I’ll give Shyamalan 3.5 out of 5.