The Village, spoilt

[tamaranth]

I've finally worked out what irritated me so much about The Village. (Not that I'd paid good money going to see it -- was at UGC, so saw it for monthly all-you-can-watch fee -- though I did rather object to spending an evening on it.) No: it was the LIE.

I don't mind characters within a movie lying to one another. Without the lies of the Elders (cue Jethro Tull, "let's go living in the past", OK I'll stop now and the Blair Witch Nasty Monsters In The Woods) there would be no plot.

But right at the beginning we are shown a fresh gravestone, and it's dated 1897 (I may be a couple of years out, but definitely eighteen-ninety-something).

And it's a lie.

The film-maker has not just led us to deduce -- from everyone's behaviour -- that it's the 19th century: he has shown us something 'objective' that says so. I don't think the film would be weakened without that gravestone: but I think its inclusion is a Bad Thing.

Back to housework. First weekend at home for months. First lie-in, in own bed, for months scheduled for Very Soon. Am doing nothing this weekend (esp as summer is over, boo hiss). Plan to enjoy it immensely.

Comments

[yonmei.livejournal.com]

A gravestone, carved (we suppose) by one of the characters in the movie, is no more "objective" than any other form of communication.

[naturalbornkaos.livejournal.com]

Very well observed. There's holes-a-plenty in it. I think what irritated me the most about it (although the list of things that irritated me about it could keep me jabbering from now until next Thursday) is exactly what you say about that "without the lies of the Elders, there would be no plot" - the first 90 minutes or so of the film, until the "lies" are revealed is so utterly unengaging and devoid of any content. It's like he just wrote a really slapdash bunch of hokey dialogue and cheap, clichéd "fake scare" scenes around a ridiculous 'twist' idea he had one night. If he really wanted to make a movie around the concept of the elders' lies, he could've handled it a WHOLE lot better if he'd actually given the other characters some personality or written some kind of structured storyline into the screenplay...

Gargh. Sorry, I'm already going off on one. Definitely the worst film I've seen in years. First time I've thrown popcorn at a screen for awhile too.