Rambling about The Village, for Goats...
Mar. 4th, 2005 08:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
e_clare... who says I don't update enough. This is what I get for trying to be a responsible person who actually does her homework? And reads her f-list whenever possible then gets sidetracked and runs out of time for an update?
I'm proud to say that I did actually do all of my Folklore and Fakelore reading the night before, instead of Thursday afternoon in the library, like usual. I even read 3/4 of the articles for Global Cinema -- now I just need to stay awake through the entire movie, and I'll be truly on my way to good things.
The highlight of my week, in addition to an e-mail from guess-she-didn't-drop-off-the-earth-after-all Becky P., was undoubtedly The Village last night.
Maybe because it was Thursday night, end of a long week, and I was in kind of a weird mood...but I seriously could not stop thinking about the movie when we got back to the dorm. I talked Goats's ear off on the way back, babbling about the awesomeness of "this little movie," and how it was such a different experience seeing it without all the "M. Night Shyamalan, Master of Suspense" advertising building up to it. (Just ignore what I said about it at the time being "good and creepy".) I mean, it is creepy, and those shots of the creaky, bare trees swaying slightly in the wind? Love 'em. And there are still plenty of moments that made me jump in spite of myself -- that's why it's called a jump cut, kids. *rimshot*
I kill me. Anyway, what really appealed to me was getting to see it while knowing the "twist" (which isn't much of a twist, for anyone who's ever read this book, but who besides Margaret Peterson Haddix's lawyers is counting, really?). There are clues a lot earlier than I'd thought about the modern "Towns", and in the end, there's not even a satisfying conclusion about which of the elders cracked and flayed the livestock. It can't have been Noah the entire time, especially because he wouldn't have been able to handle that much of "the bad color".
The loose end doesn't bother me too much, since it just reaffirms that the point isn't the creatures in the woods; it's about what forces caused the elders to put them there. I remember a lot of press at the time about the film as a comment on post-9/11 culture and recovery from trauma...the story speaks to that a little bit, on the level of cultivating a fear of the outside to keep a community safe and insulated. But there are still more interesting aspects: Ivy, as the blind one, is the only Villager who can safely pass through the woods and to the towns, because she'll come back relatively uncorrupted. One one level, she's lost the innocence of believing in the creatures (although as we see in her final encounter with Noah, it's not easy to shake those fears one was raised on). But on another, because she cannot see the differences between her world and the one over the wall, she is even more innocent.
I'm thinking about it (and now I need to see it again to be sure), and I don't know that Walker ever told his daughter the truth about the outside world. He gave her the directions -- follow the road, etc. -- still carefully framed in the 19th century context. We hear the voiceovers and see the photographs of the original 20th century elders...but Ivy doesn't. She and Lucius really are the only hope for the future of the village, and the best hope they could have had: Ivy can say that she's been to the towns; she's been, and returned, and doesn't know that anything is different. Poor Kevin the ranger seemed too stunned (and full of pity?) to try to tell her the truth. If Lucius had gone against the will of the elders and set out on his own, he would have returned totally disillusioned. He would be driven to return to the village, and spread the truth, and ended existence as they knew it.
But...did he know already, about the creatures? (He strikes me as a smart one, but that could be the Joaquin-lust talking, rather than actual filmic evidence.) Is that why he was able to wander around during the drill, and sweep everybody else into their own homes with apparently little fear for himself?
So many questions. banannagoats, we're on for a movie date. I didn't know if it would stand up to a third viewing...but I think it just might. Plus, pretty.
I'm spending the rest of my productive evening in the library, reading for film and not revising my Fakelore paper. Then I'll probably go home andread fic do more homework. What exciting lives we MoHos do lead...
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I'm proud to say that I did actually do all of my Folklore and Fakelore reading the night before, instead of Thursday afternoon in the library, like usual. I even read 3/4 of the articles for Global Cinema -- now I just need to stay awake through the entire movie, and I'll be truly on my way to good things.
The highlight of my week, in addition to an e-mail from guess-she-didn't-drop-off-the-earth-after-all Becky P., was undoubtedly The Village last night.
Maybe because it was Thursday night, end of a long week, and I was in kind of a weird mood...but I seriously could not stop thinking about the movie when we got back to the dorm. I talked Goats's ear off on the way back, babbling about the awesomeness of "this little movie," and how it was such a different experience seeing it without all the "M. Night Shyamalan, Master of Suspense" advertising building up to it. (Just ignore what I said about it at the time being "good and creepy".) I mean, it is creepy, and those shots of the creaky, bare trees swaying slightly in the wind? Love 'em. And there are still plenty of moments that made me jump in spite of myself -- that's why it's called a jump cut, kids. *rimshot*
I kill me. Anyway, what really appealed to me was getting to see it while knowing the "twist" (which isn't much of a twist, for anyone who's ever read this book, but who besides Margaret Peterson Haddix's lawyers is counting, really?). There are clues a lot earlier than I'd thought about the modern "Towns", and in the end, there's not even a satisfying conclusion about which of the elders cracked and flayed the livestock. It can't have been Noah the entire time, especially because he wouldn't have been able to handle that much of "the bad color".
The loose end doesn't bother me too much, since it just reaffirms that the point isn't the creatures in the woods; it's about what forces caused the elders to put them there. I remember a lot of press at the time about the film as a comment on post-9/11 culture and recovery from trauma...the story speaks to that a little bit, on the level of cultivating a fear of the outside to keep a community safe and insulated. But there are still more interesting aspects: Ivy, as the blind one, is the only Villager who can safely pass through the woods and to the towns, because she'll come back relatively uncorrupted. One one level, she's lost the innocence of believing in the creatures (although as we see in her final encounter with Noah, it's not easy to shake those fears one was raised on). But on another, because she cannot see the differences between her world and the one over the wall, she is even more innocent.
I'm thinking about it (and now I need to see it again to be sure), and I don't know that Walker ever told his daughter the truth about the outside world. He gave her the directions -- follow the road, etc. -- still carefully framed in the 19th century context. We hear the voiceovers and see the photographs of the original 20th century elders...but Ivy doesn't. She and Lucius really are the only hope for the future of the village, and the best hope they could have had: Ivy can say that she's been to the towns; she's been, and returned, and doesn't know that anything is different. Poor Kevin the ranger seemed too stunned (and full of pity?) to try to tell her the truth. If Lucius had gone against the will of the elders and set out on his own, he would have returned totally disillusioned. He would be driven to return to the village, and spread the truth, and ended existence as they knew it.
But...did he know already, about the creatures? (He strikes me as a smart one, but that could be the Joaquin-lust talking, rather than actual filmic evidence.) Is that why he was able to wander around during the drill, and sweep everybody else into their own homes with apparently little fear for himself?
So many questions. banannagoats, we're on for a movie date. I didn't know if it would stand up to a third viewing...but I think it just might. Plus, pretty.
I'm spending the rest of my productive evening in the library, reading for film and not revising my Fakelore paper. Then I'll probably go home and
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