SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS
My next review was gonna be for the Zohan, and I did like it, but couldn’t think of a damned thing to say about it that would convince people to see if it if they hadn’t already.
Go see The Happening. Now. Take a look at my rating, take a look at my tone of writing. Go see it. I am pissed as hell off at this Shyamalon hating. It’s unfair, unwarranted and I DARE anyone who’s giving this film anything close to a Zero star review to read what I’m about to say and give me a well-thought out, intelligent response. I DEFY you.
Repeat: F*****g SPOILERS.
Here’s a typical review snippet from Rotten Tomatoes on the film (which currently has a punch-to-the-balls-of-cinema-theory 19% positive):
“The directoring masterdom of Shyamalon’s previouser workings is not any longer here anymore. Gone is the tighterly focused shottings from The Sixth Sense and the dramalike superherodom of Unbreakable’s climaxtic show down. In its place, we has shaky-cam, handheld compositorisitions and actors who looks like they are in the first takes.”
If that was hard for you to read, I’m glad - Because it looks just as stupid to me with proper grammar. By comparing the moody, personal, and structured realization of The Sixth Sense to the totally different directorial style of The Happening is to disregard subjectivity in film. It’s like saying Scream is bad because it’s not directed like The fucking Last House on the Left. Directors direct, fellow critics, based on what is RIGHT for the story. If Walt Disney wanted to make a snuff film, I doubt he would FUCKING ANIMATE IT WITH SINGING, TORTURED MARMOSETS.
A director whose name escapes me at the moment once made a film using only pans or only static shots or something. I would say it was an interesting experiment, if not for the fact that it was totally fucking retarded. Here’s a rundown of what might have happened:
"We\'re gonna have her move across the frame and out the other side. Yes, you, the PA in the Cannibal Holocaust shirt."
"Yeah, Mr. De Palma... I just, uh, well, I mean,"
"Yeah, out with it kid."
"Well, if we do that, we\'d be indicating that she can escape from her fate, and the strength of your script and production design rests on the audience knowing she can\'t. If we pan with her, like in that great shot from 400 Blows, then it’d be much more fitting with your visi-"
"... You\'re fired. Forever."
I might as well make a movie using only Super Extreme Close Ups of eyes, because that happening two or three times in The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly was the only reason that movie was awesome. Thusly, a movie made up only of that would be infinitely more awesome than The Good, the Bad, and the fucking Ugly.
The characters all looking around uncomfortably and delivering their lines with awkward touches does, in fact, give the impression of a First Take. But whereas most films wouldn’t benefit from this, The Happening most certainly does. It’s very uncomfortable to sit there and watch uncomfortable people in unclear situations. It makes the fact that they’re essentially running from the wind not seem ridiculous, and it actually saves the film from the absurdity it’s being accused of. If these people were direct and empowered in their delivery, not afraid of their unclear surrounding dangers... why would we be?
Also, the only real, extreme handheld shot is early on, in a Point-of-View of three construction workers who are running over to a fallen friend and co-worker. I assume that four out of every five critics who saw this didn’t understand why a panicked, heart-rending moment of horrified exhilaration such as this wasn’t shot with a stedi-cam, slowly, and without anything contextual to the situation.
Also, in terms of the perceived ultimate message, I have a horrifyingly unique observation. As much as this movie is about environmental damnation, which everyone is complaining about like it\'s some crime to have it there, it’s much more generally about America. It’s about the fucking Government; how they are not only untrustworthy, but how it\'s right to think that of them. A character our heroes meet late in the game lives alone in a large house in a secluded forest. She’s not used to company, she has no contact with the outside world: No telephone, no radio, no television, no Broadband. I doubt she even has 56k. “I don’t care about the world,” she says, “and it doesn’t care about me.”
At this point, and at another one not far behind showing the woman’s violent distrust for her fellow human being, most of my fellow audience members laughed their asses off for some reason. This is, actually, dark, dark shit. For a woman to be so offended by the world around her that she’ll choose to live in utter solitude for the rest of her days as it eats itself alive is a mentality about two nationally-televised child murders from where I am right now. What could have happened to this woman to make her feel these things? You may notice an olde-time, sepia-toned photo of a young woman with a dashing, decorated soldier by her side. The picture’s visible in the scene where the gang are having dinner with the old woman. Could this crazy old broad have lost her young love to a war she didn’t agree with? As you wrap your head around it, the scene comes to its conclusion as a child reaches for a cookie and the old woman JACKIE CHANS her hand away from the plate. “Don’t take what isn’t yours,” she hisses at the young girl.
If at this point you haven’t picked up a very strong Anti-American vibe, leave the theater and drop off an application at your local newspaper to be a film critic. You should be hired in no time flat.
There’s so much I want to say here, but I’ll leave it at this (and, really, even if you’ve gone this far without seeing the film, please stop here. Please.):
The penultimate sequence begins with a news report asking why this happened. The answer is ultimately unclear, but one theory that is raised has to do with a sort of warning from Mother Earth. This Could Happen Again, the interviewee says.
“Well yes,” the host responds, “But this only happened in the Northeast. If it happened one other place – just ONE other place, we could all agree with you.” What he means by the statement is that he still believes the Government was somehow involved. He needs more convincing that the Government didn’t just try to test its new chemical weapon on one area.
Cut to Paris, France, as it all starts to happen again. And what an odd place for it to happen, too – I mean, if we were gonna re-test or attack someone with this thing, we would use it on an enemy, right? Like something with deserts. It’s not like the Parisians are fighting against us in The War On Nothing… just that, they didn’t really support us… that’s all...
Keep at it, M. I ask this of you as a fan, an admirer, and a devotee.
Kinda sad when a director doesn't ...