THE VILLAGE: Using Fiction to Evade Reality
Buena Vista PicturesGenerally speaking, cinema is the biggest and most easily accessible art form nowadays. Many people all around the world watch films for different reasons, but the most common one is as a form of escapism: getting lost in fictional stories to avoid the harshness of the real world, pretending that there are no taxes to pay, no unemployment, no unexpected deaths, no pain. Film critics often enjoy analysing certain works as “films about films”, often in a forced manner but fascinating, nonetheless.
A movie that is ambiguous enough to work as a Rorschach test for every audience member and critic that delves deep into its themes is 2004’s The Village, by the master of the cinematic twist M. Night Shyamalan. Initially met with mixed reactions by audiences and critics alike, the (not really) period-piece has gone on to become the only true cult film in the director’s filmography, with its ardent fans heralding it as some of his finest work. The biggest point of contention that usually splits lovers from haters is its central twist: the 19th century setting is actually the 21st century, where the elders of the Pennsylvania village decided to be protected from the outside world by living inside a wildlife preserve, starting lives anew and shielding their children from modern society.
The titular town embodies the titillating utopia of living in a world without violence or greed, where men, women, and children do not have to worry about anything other than surviving and enjoying life. It is the perfect lie. The elders had lived for at least 40 years in the real world, each of them suffering in different ways: being robbed, assaulted, losing loved ones at the hands of criminals… They know what it means to be hurt and to grieve, and instead of facing their problems straight on (they all met at a grief counselling clinic), they chose to go into hiding, abandoning their selves and their families.
The only way they were able to keep the new generations from leaving the borders was to create and embody the monstruous “Those We Don’t Speak Of”, anthropomorphic beings with long nails and pig-like faces that are pure nightmare fuel because they move in the shadows and are seldom seen in the daylight. These monsters hearken back to creatures of old, built up as scarecrows for adults and children alike to prevent them from venturing too far. Think of all the sea monsters like Scylla and Charybdis, the Kraken, or Cetus, mythological beings that took a life of their own similar to “Those We Don’t Speak Of”. The fact the patriarchs and matriarchs of the village are in these costumes reinforces just how desperate these people are to keep their secret alive.
Still, as much as they try, violence and pain end up penetrating the village, not from the outside but from the inside: children die due to the absence of modern medicine, jealousy clouds the minds of some, and a desire to explore puts in jeopardy the entire lie at the core of The Village. All of this mirrors how some audience members use film (or art in general for that matter) in a dangerously obsessive way: the real world is so painful that the manufactured nature of cinema is soft, comforting, a perfect utopia where there are only happy endings, and everything can be controlled as one pleases. Why endure the daily suffering when it is possible to retreat forever into a land of fiction?
This is what the elders decided to do, and this is what deeply hurt people do in reality. This is something that is relatable and sympathetic at first: no one enjoys pain, loss, and betrayals, therefore when the opportunity of escaping all of them is readily available, very few would be prone to dismiss it. The year of the pandemic saw many find refuge and comfort in art to cope with all the madness that engulfed the world, and it took a lot of strength from everyone to come back from it and be ready to face the world. The people in The Village would much rather stay comfortably numb and live in their ignorance.
However, as Shyamalan points out, this is not a viable way of living forever, with the real world slowly creeping into the fantasy realm that took years to engineer. Even the leader of the elders (William Hurt’s Edward Walker) is starting to realise that they cannot live without the comforts of the modern world, for grief is still haunting them well over two decades after they first met. They ran away from their problems without fully healing. The Village shows that fiction can help in the short run only without indulging in it, while reality has to be faced straight on to achieve closure and be able to move forward in life.
After the climax of the film, the elders are preparing themselves to let go of the lie and their new way of living in case young Ivy Walker’s mission into the real world was a bust. Not only is she successful, but an unfortunate encounter with the intellectually disabled Noah Percy fortifies and supports the myth of “Those We Don’t Speak Of”. They have witnessed pure love from Ivy for Lucius Hunt, but they have also come close to losing everything they built, realising that it is unlikely they can keep going for much longer. This is the final question of The Village: if possible, is it best to keep living inside of a fictional realm, or should the real world be embraced regardless of all the agony that might ensue from this decision? It is up to the viewers to decide. Hopefully, after everything that happened, they will realise that running away is never a solution and that going back into the real world will be the only way to find peace and lead an honest life, balancing the good with the bad. Hard? Of course. But nobody ever said that life is supposed to be easy.