(previously: Kill Bill)

"There's a monster outside my room. Can I have a glass of water?"

This line comes up in the first 15 minutes of the film, so you can't say the ending won't have been foreshadowed. More importantly, this is one of the numerous, yet still often dismissed examples of writer-director M. Night Shyamalan's sense of humor that can be found in this and all his other films. Some critics keep complaining that said flicks are silly on the one hand, but then they accuse him of taking himself too seriously.

Here's the thing: yes, some of the story elements in Shyamalan's tales can be silly, but he's very much aware of that. Heck, he embraces it! I've read enough about Night to be able to tell you with confidence that he couldn't care less about making a dark, gritty and cynical film and thus satisfying all the blasé motherfuckers who've forgotten what the expressions "suspension of disbelief" and "having fun" mean. Night grew up on old sci-fi, fantasy and horror B-movies where the occasional silliness is part of the fun. At the same time, while trying to capture that feel in his own work, Shyamalan always throws in a few gags about it, as if to say, "I know, this is goofy, but let's enjoy it all the same, alright?" In fact, at some point, he comes right out and has a character say out loud: "It's okay to be silly."

He could also add, "But don't worry, while there's a time for good-humored fun, things will eventually get dead serious, and you'll be on the edge of your seat!" Right from the opening scene, actually, there are moments filled with suspense. Waking up with a bad presentiment. A scream in the distance. The children aren't in their room. Running up to find them and discovering odd patterns in your cornfields... Crop circles.



If you're reading this, you've seen "Signs" already (you better have anyway, as spoilers will surely pop up here and there), so you know that, despite all the red herrings about "Lionel Pritchard and the Wolfington brothers" or "nerds who never had a girlfriend" (!), it will turn out that yes, aliens are responsible for the crop circles and they're about to invade Earth. Again, silly flourishes or not, I think it's undeniable that the actual scenes in which the characters are confronted with extraterrestrial intruders are scary as hell... Even though, most often, we only catch glimpses of them, which makes it all the more mysterious and terrifying.

Shyamalan is an absolute master at suggesting just enough to unsettle you, then going for the slow-burn tension, where it's more about the look on the actors' faces and the atmosphere surrounding them than about the money shots. Which is not to say that the cinematography, here handled by Tak Fujimoto, isn't stunning and full of memorable sights. It's just more inventive in how to shock and awe you, using the outside of the frame or quick inserts, for instance, instead of merely showing off a lot of special effects. James Newton Howard's brilliantly unnerving score also contributes greatly in keeping us on our toes.

That being said, as effective as all the alien stuff is (the farmhouse attack is possibly the most riveting set piece I've seen in the last ten years), you could remove all of it from "Signs" and it would still make my best of the decade top ten. What really does it for me, for one, is the taut, clever storytelling. How there isn't a single superfluous line or detail - every piece ultimately adds up. From the get-go, we're given seemingly innocuous little bits of information that will only take meaning later. Few mainstream Hollywood films respect the audience's intelligence to this extent and reward their attention so much. In every Shyamalan movie, his better ones anyway, we're left in the dark for a long time, trying to understand what's going on exactly with this or that, which leads to moments of revelation that are incredibly moving, both intellectually and emotionally.



Even more than the precise plotting, it's the characters that Night created and the actors he got to play them that utterly win me over every time I watch this film. Mel Gibson's Graham, Joaquin Phoenix's Merril, Rory Culkin's Morgan and Abigail Breslin's Bo form a family as convincing and endearing as the movies have ever given us. Through the funny and scary parts alike, it's their interaction, first and foremost, that makes it work. We truly grow to care for this widower, his kids and his brother and when the last act comes, we feel so close to them that everything that happens becomes intensely personal for us too.

I've written about this before, but there are five key moments in the last stretch of "Sign" that never fail to make me cry. The group hug during the "last dinner" scene; Graham telling his daughter about when she was born and everyone thought she was an angel; Graham telling his son about his birth and how his mama had dreamed of him her whole life; Graham cursing God when it seems like, after losing his wife, he's also going to lose his boy; and his final epiphany, when a miracle occurs and he regains his faith.

What's weird is that I'm not even a religious person or someone who believes in signs in real life. Why does "Signs" move me so much, then? I'm not quite sure... Maybe it's just that we live in such a miserable, fucked up world that it's an amazing relief when, if only for a few minutes while we're watching a movie, everything finally seems to make sense and we can feel hope again...

Or, to quote Graham's central monologue:

"People break down into two groups. When they experience something lucky, group number one sees it as more than luck, more than a coincidence, they see it as a sign—evidence that there is someone up there watching out for them. Group number two sees it as just pure luck, a happy turn of chance. I'm sure the people in group number two are looking at those fourteen lights in a very suspicious way. For them, the situation is 50-50—could be bad, could be good. But deep down, they feel that whatever happens, they are on their own. And that fills them with fear. Yeah, there are those people. But there are a whole lot of people in the group number one. When they see those 14 lights, they're looking at a miracle. And deep down, they feel that whatever's going to happen, there'll be someone there to help them. And that fills them with hope. See, what you have to ask yourself is, what kind of person are you? Are you the kind that sees signs, sees miracles? Or do you believe that people just get lucky? Or, look at the question this way—Is it possible that there are no coincidences?"

As I said, I'm not sure what my answer is. But I find the question immensely fascinating and oddly affecting. That, in short (well, if we can call 1200 words short!), is why I think M. Night Shyamalan's "Signs" is one of the best films of the '00s.

9/4/2009