During the monumental, relentlessly hypnotic climax, M. Night Shyamalan succeeds in finding a cinematic equivalent of the effortless unfolding of superhuman powers, in a formal framework also suggesting the hero’s ritualised path to that state.
When M. Night Shyamalan’s flawed film starts working, its elements play in unison as in a symphonic work, where the sketchily drawn characters become pieces in a formal game of harmony.
We look at three outstanding scenes in this better-than-you-think M. Night Shyamalan film, along with its pervasive motif of figures in a landscape, visual rhymes and many occasions of elegant staging.
Several Norwegian films and filmmakers have made their way to the inaugural Architecture Film Festival London, 6. – 11. June – including Joachim Trier and Eskil Vogt.
With the artistic, commercial and critical success of The Visit and Split, it is about time to soberly unearth the very real qualities of M. Night Shyamalan’s disproportionally maligned middle period.
«Upon its release, Raymond Bernard’s Les Croix de bois (1932) was seen as a pacifist march of death.»
«The main character is not guilty of or tempted by murder or theft. She has just been guilty of arrogance without conceiving the consequences to which her vanity might lead.»
The new leaner, meaner version of M. Night Shyamalan has made a bizarre but thoroughly gripping film, providing an emotionally deep understanding of why psychological survival mechanisms arise in abuse victims.
TIFF 2017: For all the monkeying around, Steve Oram’s Aaaaaaaah! from 2015 has given us a mirror – and we may not like what we see!
Karlovy Vary 2016: Houston, We Have a Problem! is a minor masterpiece of plausible fabrication, tracking real events with an unwavering satirical eye, and placing them in a perspective that is at once ridiculous and illuminating.
Karlovy Vary 2016: What makes Under the Sun so effective is the way it has managed to capture the beauty of North Korea and juxtapose it with social relationships that provoke, at best, a much more ambivalent response.
Karlovy Vary 2016: Rebecca Figenschau’s short drama-film Elephant Skin (2015) received its international premiere and a warm reception at Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (KVIFF) this week. But why is this the only new Norwegian film being shown here?