@motion: Lady in the Water

[spoilers]
I had a weird experience with M. Night Shyamalans’ The Village. I went to see it in the theater and about a quarter the way into the movie I started to notice this fuzzy fur ball creeping in from the top of the screen and then disappearing. About the third time I realized that it was the head of a boom mic. I figured that the Village must have been a reality TV show or something and that was going to be the twist that they were foreshadowing, albeit without a shadow. The mic thing happened just enough to not be coincidental but not often enough to be a mistake… or so I thought. Once the plot was exposed as a society away from society (or a home school community as I like to say), I was a little confused. I came to learn that some of the theaters had the wrong aspect ratio or something and that it was actually a mistake that made it into many viewers’ experiences.


Luckily, I didn’t have the same type of crapiness with Lady in the Water. It did take three attempts before I was able to see it, but I think that actually helped me to enjoy the movie more. I heard from friends and from snippets in reviews to not expect a twist and that it wasn’t going to be scary at all (though I did jump at the sprinklers going off one time). With that in mind, it helped me to take in what it really was, a Story, and not just an expectation (a really twisty story / a close your eyes, look out story / a let’s see what he’s going to do now story.) It is probably my favorite of Shamalama-ding-dong’s films. He could have cut back on showing the CGI-ified monster and stuck to shadows and the unknown a little more… and it was a little out of element at first to have him play in the movie as a semi-main character (and egotistically the character whose writing was going to change the world) but nobody’s perfect and it still made for a good flick, especially with Paul Giamatti in it.


A couple themes that got my attention were that of modern day prophesy and that of finding your gifting and/or calling. In regards to the former, even in biblical times prophesy was strange. Isaiah walked around naked, Ezekiel cooked with poop, and Hosea married a whore. In Lady, a prophetic interpretation comes through a little kid reading cereal boxes. It was kind of cheesy but then again why should we expect utterances from the heavens to come in anything abnormal or extra-normal? [though I’m still not sold on the virgin Mary toast bit from eBay] Speaking of the latter theme, Lady conveyed such a good representation of what we as individuals and we as the corporate church do with gifting/callings. There were characters who were told they were something, a healer or prophet or guardian, and everyone was so on board with the fact that they were these things… they even kept encouraging this one guy saying “it’s like hearing the words of god”, and it turns out that it wasn’t him that was the prophet but his son. Another character was convinced by himself and the one he was protecting that he was a guardian then goes back to a “normal” then discovers he’s the healer. It was a thought provoking scenario that made you realize that faith and truth must me married for either one to be effective and that for the most part it’s a process to discover your hidden depths.

Naomi said she liked how the characters weren’t the typical caucasian thin celebrity type. There were many different cultures (and sizes) represented in the movie, and in the end they needed to act as a community to accomplish something that transcended each of their worldviews and upbringings. This was a good reminder that we need people different than ourselves and our train of thought; both we and they have something to give and both need to also receive.