The Sixth Sense (M. Night Shyamalan, 1999)
While still firmly enmeshed in my Miyazaki leg of this marathon, I am starting on the M. Night leg as well, if only because I have access to the first four entries (not including his first two films, which sadly are not available on Netflix presently). Some questioned my inclusion of M. Night on a great directors marathon (some also questioned Fincher). He has made some off films lately and perhaps I should go as far as to say that he is a competent director but an abnormally creative one. It is this latter mark that earns him inclusion. He is making films unlike anyone else in the business. And while Fincher brings a higher level of technical proficiency to a fairly narrow genre class, M. Night, like Danny Boyle later in this marathon, works across the genres. Sixth Sense is horror, Unbreakable is comic book/superhero, Signs is alien/sci-fi, The Village is period/monster, Lady In The Water is fairy tale/fantasy and The Happening is a slice of 70s paranoia sci-fi. They may not all work but each is a fairly fresh look at a given genre. It will be interesting to see where The Last Airbender will fit in since it is arguably his least personal film yet.
Anyway, without further ado, here is The Sixth Sense. This review will have spoilers (well, the main spoiler) because it is important to the discussion and I don't want to put my whole paragraph in spoiler text. Also, it is such an established part of pop culture at this point that I think the statute of limitations on spoiling this film is gone.
I was 16 or so years old when I first watched The Sixth Sense and I remember distinctly the next couple days after watching it being very unsettled by the dark. The concept of the film, and the idea that ghosts are all around, unseen by most but unknowingly sensed, was strong and combined with the film's well established mood it lingered in a way that few horror films really succeed in. In rewatching it, I'm a bit surprised how few scares this film actually has to offer. There are only at most a half dozen real scary moments here, but you wouldn't realize that from how effective the film is. Even having seen it a number of times, I had paused prior to one of the first main scares to go get a bowl of cereal and was thinking to myself I need to be careful. Even so, the first scare came and I spilled a bit of my cereal. Sure, in this case it is one of those cliche score induced scares, but even those can be more or less effective based on how well the general tension has been built.
There are a few particular things I picked up this time. Cole is punished for a violent drawing at school and thus pushes his attempt to express what he is experiencing inside of himself. I don't think I recognized it at this time, but this is particularly interesting coming the same year as the Columbine massacre and the rise of zero-tolerance policies that would probably promote this sort of over-reaction. M. Night pretty much always makes Philadelphia the star of his films (I think every city needs a director to do this...Austin has Linklater, NYC has Allen and Scorsese, not sure Denver has anyone). In this case it is powerful given Philly's historical nature. Through the various snippets of ghost stories, we see some of history's brutality (public hangings, class based violence, etc) but we also get very mundane things. For all the stories that we get, the one that gets the most focus is Kyra (Mischa Barton...I love a reference made to this role in The OC), which comes to a very powerful emotional resolution.
Then we come to the famous twist. A common theme in my reviews will be fighting back against the "it is all about the twist" claim that has often been leveled against M. Night. This one is probably the most powerful and crafty. It is skillful the way that he makes the film consistent with Malcolm as both alive or as a ghost. I certainly am happy to have had my original experience unspoiled. But I certainly don't think it is a lesser experience with the knowledge, in fact, it is a better experience with the knowledge of what is happening (though because of the ability to re-watch, I'd certainly hope everyone gets a chance to see it both ways). Understanding that Malcolm is one of the cases and further that Cole seems to know it (I'm not sure about this interpretation, even yet) makes the conversations that much more meaningful.
The Sixth Sense isn't a flawless film; I don't think M. Night really makes them, but it is a special mix of creativity and delivering on promise that isn't common. And I think it is properly in my top 50 of all-time.
Rating: 5/5