Another Failed Utopia
A Review of M. Night Shyamalan’s “The Village” by S. Randall Toms
Warning: This review contains “spoilers,” so you may want to watch the movie before you read this review.
When one watches a movie by M. Night Shyamalan, one expects an incredibly surprising twist at the end, such as the conclusion of one of his other hit movies, The Sixth Sense. His latest movies, both Signs and The Village do not contain twists that overpower us the way The Sixth Sense did. As one watches The Village, one is aware that there are a few ways that the movie can end. When it does end in one of those ways, we just say, “I thought so.” Shyamalan, in some ways, is a victim of his own success. Everybody expects all of his movies to be another episode of The Twilight Zone. The Village is beautifully shot, well-acted, and has a great story. Just don’t expect another Sixth Sense. Though The Village does not surprise us a great deal, it does contain an interesting theme that I would like to pursue for this review.
The Village concerns a group of people living in rural, communal setting. On festive occasions, or even to mourn the passing away of a loved one, all of the villagers take their meals together, outdoors, at long tables. The people are dressed in what would appear to be nineteenth century dress. The community is governed by a council of elders, although there is no hint that this is a religious sect. The name of God is mentioned only once in this movie in a vague and nebulous sense. Prayer is mentioned twice. Though the film frequently confronts us with images of an idyllic setting, the movie opens on a somber note with a father weeping over the coffin of a child. Immediately, we know that all is not well in the village. Not far into the movie, we find that the people live in fear of “those we do not speak of.” We do not know what these beings might be, but there are certain rules that the people must obey concerning them. No one must venture into the forest surrounding the village. Thus, no one is ever to leave the village. The people in the village know that there are towns outside the village, but they must never go there for they would have to pass through the woods to get to the towns. There must be no color red in the village, because red attracts those that they must not speak of. There is a watchtower at the edge of the forest to alert people in case these creatures come to the village.
As the movie progresses, there are signs that these creatures may be on the verge of attacking the village. The people are terrified when they find some of their animals killed and skinned. One night, all of the doors are marked with red. Supposedly these warnings are given because some of the young people have dared to venture into the woods. Also, Lucius Hunt, played by Joaquin Phoenix, has asked for permission to go to the towns to get medical supplies to prevent further deaths. After Lucius’ request, we are given a glimpse of one of these beings. It is dressed in a red cloak, appears to have something like porcupine quills coming out of its back, and has long claws, or perhaps, talons.
One of the important subplots of the movie is the love relationship between Ivy Walker, a blind girl, played by Bryce Dallas Howard (director Ron Howard’s daughter), and Lucius Hunt. Bryce Dallas Howard really steals the show with her first performance in a starring role. Another character, Noah Percy (played by academy award winner Adrien Brody), a young man who is mentally deranged in some way, is a very good friend of Ivy’s. Noah is not mentally retarded. He seems to be incredibly hyperactive, but he has a good vocabulary when he can calm himself down enough to speak, once remarking, “Capital idea!” When Noah finds that Ivy is about to marry Lucius, he stabs Lucius out of jealousy. Ivy wants to go to the towns to buy medicine to save Lucius. Ivy’s father, Edward Walker (played by Willaim Hurt), one of the elders, decides to let her go. Before she leaves, Ivy’s father decides to show her the truth about those they do not speak of. He takes her into a shed and shows her one of these creatures. Of course, since Ivy is blind, she has to touch this creature. When she turns away hysterically, her father tells her that is a farce. There are no such creatures. The elders of the village have made this elaborate costume to wear from time to time in order to frighten the people. The elders invented them to keep the people from ever trying to leave the village. Thus, the elders have created a myth, a very fearful one, to keep the people in the village. Since the elders know the truth about these creatures, the creation of the myth is strictly for the benefit of the young, so that they will never try to stray. The elders of the village appear to have no religion, so they do not have an established religion, such as Judaism, Christianity, or Islam, to use as a means of control. In the course of time, the elders realized that they had to create a fearful myth in order to keep their children from ever leaving the village to be corrupted by the towns. They have done what Joseph Campbell advocated for the modern world.
Campbell believed that we had outgrown the old myths (he considered Christianity to be one of those), and there was a need to create a new myth. The elders in The Village have done exactly that. The myth is so effective in the lives of their children, that when two of the young men try to accompany Ivy through the woods, they turn back and leave her alone to fend for herself, because they are so afraid of these mythical creatures. The elders have, in effect, created “the boogeyman” to threaten their children.
The elders have created a quasi-religious community. The young people are assigned duties in the watchtowers. Though the elders know that there are no creatures, the young spend fearful nights waiting for them to come. When one of the “creatures” does make an appearance, the children huddle in fear in basements. It seems cruel that the elders would allow the children to be so horribly frightened by a lie, but the elders have convinced themselves that this creation of fear is for a good cause. This religion also has taboos. They are not to speak of these creatures. They are to avoid the color red. They even have a “ceremony of meat” in which they offer an animal at the edge of the woods to appease the wrath of these creatures for the “sin” of venturing into the forbidden forest. The elders have also created a myth concerning time. The headstone for the recently deceased Daniel Nicholson, has the date of death as 1897. But it is not 1897. When Ivy crosses the fence, a vehicle arrives which has an inspection sticker that will expire 12/04. It seems that for this community, the 20th century was an evil time, filled with violence. The 19th century was a time of greater innocence, before the modern world had been corrupted by all the horrors of crime and two world wars.
Though this creation of a fearful myth may seem cruel, the elders are convinced that they have done it for the good of their children. They have left the modern world, and created the myth to protect their young. One of the young people speaks of the town as being “wicked places where wicked people live.” Sadly, the elders find that they find that they cannot create the utopia that will shield the children. Children still die, and they are still subject to violence. Toward the end of the movie, we find that the elders all left the modern world, because they had experienced some kind of tragedy in their lives due to the violence of the towns. They are trying to shield their children from these things. Ivy’s father tells her that all the elders had experienced a terrible loss in their lives, and he wanted to shield her from the darkness of that experience. Thus, what we have in The Village is the portrayal of another attempt to establish a utopian community that will shield themselves and their children from the tragedies encountered in the modern world. All of the elders in the village have met great tragedies because of the violence of the modern world. They keep pictures, newspapers, and other reminders of this violence in locked boxes in each of their homes. Alice Hunt (played by Sigourney Weaver) says that she keeps them as a reminder of her past. She is afraid that if she forgets these horrible events, they may be born again in another form. Each elder keeps such a box as a reminder of why they are there.
Like all utopian schemes, this community cannot shield its members from the tragedies of life. As I mentioned earlier, the movie opens with one of the elders, August Nicholson, burying one of his children. He later tells Lucius that there is no way to escape the sorrow–”it can smell you.” The people in the village try to escape the violence of the modern world, yet Noah tries to murder another person for no other reason than jealousy. The interesting point of Noah being the bringer of violence to the community is that, since he is mentally handicapped, he is considered to be “an innocent.” Yet, it is this “innocent” that is guilty of attempted murder. From the beginning, we find that Noah has a penchant for violence. He likes playing games where he hits other boys with sticks. Ivy threatens to put him in “the quiet room” if he doesn’t stop hitting people. Also, Noah seems to want an invasion from “those whom we do not speak of.”
Whenever it seems that the creatures are going to appear, he gets very excited, laughs, and claps his hands. Toward the end of the film, we find that it is Noah who has discovered one of the creature costumes, and that he has been the one skinning the animals. Giving this character the name “Noah” was a great touch by Shyamalan. During the days of the Biblical Noah, the book of Genesis tells us, “The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence” (Gen. 6:11). After all the people in the world were killed during the flood, except for Noah and his family, the world had a chance to start anew. But as we all know, violence came back to the world. In The Village, in an ironic twist, it is Noah that brings back violence to the new world the elders have tried to create. He brings back the dread red color, the color of blood. At the end of the movie, Noah dies while trying to kill Ivy. Thus, Noah, the innocent, moves from jealousy, to an attempt to murder his rival, and finally to an attempt to murder the one he loves. When Edward Walker explains why he has allowed Ivy to go to the towns, he says that if he hadn’t done so, the community would never have been able to maintain its innocence. He argues that the one thing this community has is innocence. But is this community innocent? Some of the deaths in the village could have been prevented if they had been willing to go to the towns to get medical attention. Their control of the children is based on lies and deception. Furthermore, Noah’s actions indicate that innocence cannot be totally maintained. This utopian community finds that jealousy, envy, greed, and covetousness are not only in the towns, but within themselves and the children who have been reared in the village. In spite of these facts, the elders persist in trying to perpetuate the myth. When Noah dies, they decide to tell the rest of the people in the village that this is what the creatures will try to do to those who go into the woods. Edward Walker tells Noah’s parents, “Your son has made our stories true. Noah has given us a chance to continue in this place.” Like Noah of old, this new Noah has given them a chance to start again, but this new start is built once again on deception.
Another irony in this separatist village is that though they try to separate themselves from the modern world, they can never entirely escape their need of the towns. Ivy must go to the towns to get the medical supplies that are needed to save Lucius’ life. The village faces the dilemma of all separatist communities: Can we reach back into the modern world to take out of it what is good? Ivy’s father tells her that when she finally went blind, he was so ashamed? Why was he ashamed? Was it because Ivy’s blindness could have been prevented if he had gone to the towns to get medical help for her? Finally, he gives permission for Ivy to go to the town’s to save Lucius. His wife talks him out of going to the towns himself, because he has taken an oath that he never would go back. When he gives permission for Ivy to go, some of the other elders fear that he has endangered their entire project, for other people may find their location.
Shyamalan’s The Village is a commentary on our utopian schemes, especially those that advocate a withdrawal from the world. The Village reveals that such schemes never ultimately deliver us from the sorrows and tragedies we try to escape. From a Christian perspective we can say that The Village is an example of Jesus’ words, “For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies”(Matthew 15:18). No matter how far we retreat from the modern world, these evils are present with us, inside of us. Jesus said that he wanted his followers to be in the world, but not of the world. All those who try to escape the temptations and tragedies of life by a retreat from the world will find their efforts to be futile. Even the creation of a new myth, a myth without God, will not result in a better world. Furthermore, as ? says, “We cannot escape the heartaches of life. We know that now.” Like most utopian communities, people thinking that they can make a better world find that what they have tried to leave behind has only followed them to a new location.
Christians often have utopian schemes, but we fail to take into account the heart of man. The Christian must not retreat from the world, but function as salt and light. Escapist illusions, whether Christian or secular, have always met with similar fates—either abandonment of the project, or the creation of lies to sustain an illusion.
Copyright c 2004 by Stephan R. Toms
