Re: Lady in the Water -- The Movie Board

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Subject: Re: Lady in the Water

Author:
Kylopod

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Date Posted: 00:43:55 09/05/07 Wed
Author Host/IP: pool-71-246-76-133.bltmmd.east.verizon.net/71.246.76.133
In reply to: Jimmy 's message, "Re: Lady in the Water" on 19:19:40 09/04/07 Tue

>"Still, I could see many of the elements that would
>come to define Shyamalan's later films, including his
>ongoing obsession with religion and faith. He tends to
>handle the subject simplistically, but he's one of the
>few Hollywood filmmakers to tackle it at all."
>
>Of course he handles it simplistically, he refuses to
>make any choices which may offend anyone.

Here I must disagree. Most Hollywood films take a bland approach to religion, trying not to offend anyone except the most extreme fundamentalists. Very few mainstream films are explicitly atheistic, but very few are explicitly theistic either.

Shyamalan, from what I've read, is a Hindu who attended Catholic School as a child. I'm not sure what he believes or practices now. "The Village" suggests a skepticism about organized religion, but "Wide Awake," "Signs," and "Lady in the Water" all strongly emphasize the idea that there is a higher power, that the world is not random. They do so much more fervently than almost any other movie I've seen.

The problem is that his approach is contrived. He relies heavily on creating plot coincidences that are supposed to seem foreordained, but it isn't convincing if you're aware that he's manipulating the events to his purpose. To put it another way: You can't prove God's existence by proving the storyteller's existence.

I have seen other movies handle the subject of cosmic coincidence more believably. Recently I saw an Israeli movie called "Ushpizin," which was a collaboration between religious and secular Jews. It allowed viewers to insert their own interpretations into the events. It was a contemporary religious fable, but without being dogmatic. Shyamalan's movies never have that double level; he always strives for one interpretation only, and it limits the possibilities as well as seeming unconvincing.

>How come there were no blacks in this movie?

What about the crossword puzzle dude and his son?

>How do you know they were Korean? They didn't look
>Korean to me. Chinese was my guess. Clearly not
>Japanese and certainly not Thai.

Ha! You might like the following site:

http://alllooksame.com

>I enjoyed that as well as the scene where Giamatti,
>acting as a child, wins her over. Very well-played.

One of the main things Shyamalan excels at, even in his bad movies, is the mood scenes.

>"Howard's character is called a "narf," the wolf-like
>thing is a "scrunt," and they have to wait for a
>monkey-like creature called a "Tarturic" before Howard
>can return to her realm."
>
>How do you remember all that?

I cheated. I looked it up.

>And what the fuck was
>the POINT of STEALING the one-armed weightlifter? That
>was laughably gay.

His introduction at the beginning felt like a bit of improbable, SNL-style humor. I realized he would probably have some importance later on, but the way they used him was just arbitrary, filling a slot in the plot.

>"There's another serious problem. All fantasies set in
>the contemporary world have to deal with the fact that
>most people today do not believe in the supernatural.
>The usual conceit is that the main character goes
>through some period of skepticism before realizing
>that what's happening is real, and then he has to
>convince everyone else, who first assume he's crazy.
>Curiously, "Lady in the Water" never addresses this
>problem at all. Giamatti never doubts that Howard
>really is a sea-nymph, and the people he enlists seem
>to come around to his story awfully quickly."
>
>Yeah, I kind of liked that aspect. For Christ's Sake,
>YOU know she's some kind of supernatural hero so why
>waste our time Fooling around with skepticism that
>will eventually subside? It's frustrating is what I'm
>saying. Let's just get on with the Fucker...dont'
>waste my Time!

There is more than one way to handle the skepticism issue in fantasies, but it needs to be addressed somehow, or else the story isn't believable. These were grown adults, for goodness sake; only the stoners and the black kid might have come around more quickly.

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Replies:

Subject	Author	Date
Re: Lady in the Water	Jimmy	04:15:10 09/05/07 Wed