The Village: 1/2 beautiful love story

Spoiler Warning!!! I always talk about the plot so don't read this if you want to see the movie!!!

I watched "The Village" last night. This is directed/written by the same guy who did "The Sixth Sense" and "The Signs".
I have a major problem remembering his last name. His middle name is Night.

The first half and the last bit of this movie was awesome.
The quiet guy who never talks of love. The blind girl who sees love through his cold facade.
The demented young man who loved them both.
The passionate girl who declares her love with no notion that she could be rejected.
The leader of the elders who never touches a specific woman for fear of his own desires.

Night is a master of succinct dialogues.
He knows that real people do not speak the way they write, so the best way to make dialogues beautiful and real at the same time is to keep them short. Also, country bumpkins do not tend to elaborate themselves and are generally shy in speech.
All of that, however, is just a choice a style. There is a deeper reason for succinct dialogues in a movie of love.

Movies are by nature closer to real life than books and songs. In a movie you don't need to comprehend everything through words. You can see the colors of the skies and the trees, you can hear the characters breathing and sighing, and you can see the hand of a person touching or not touching another. In a world so swamped with catchy phrases, it is refreshing that Night reminded us once again that we should focus on what people do, not what they say.

No, not what they say, and certainly not what you think they imply by the things they say.
(Oh what a long lesson it's been for me to learn THAT simple notion.)

In this movie of love, the first thing the girl said to the guy was about his rejection of her sister and his color.
She was explicit that he was special: he was the only one she could see other than her own dad.

The first thing he said to her was:"You run like a boy." What a compliment.

And then he did not say anything remotely romantic to her until the most touching scene, in which he didn't say anything either.

All she did was stretching her hand out into the unseen danger outside and repeatedly refused her sister to close the door when she believed he was still outside, in danger.

All he did was grabbing her hand right before the creature approached and dragged her into the cellar.

None of these would have been remotely romantic if we hadn't known that he has not touched her for years. Nor if we hadn't known that she knew he didn't touch her because he fears his own desires.

The same love theme replayed itself at her sister's wedding. The girl was dancing and enjoying herself with other boys and the guy was nowhere to be seen until the creatures attacked again. He appeared out of nowhere and grabbed her hand. Never saying a word.

But I think the love story went a bit downhill when she forced him to speak of love. He said a bit too much. I think that was out of his character. A taciturn man simply does not carry on monologues like that.

Back to the love theme.
After all, movies are about fantacies. Lucius Hunt does not exist in real life, though I dare say he exists in the fantasies of many a young woman. What girl would not want a man who adores you so much that he could not bring himself to touch you ever? The combination of strength, handsomeness and silent melancholy is already too good to be true; adding endless adoration to it should conquer any woman.

Unfortunately, it is always the fantasies that do us in, us foolish girls.

In real life, if someone does not hold you when you fake tripping over, it certainly does not mean they care too much for you and they don't want to show it. In real life Ivy would have been devoured by the creatures long before anyone come to rescue.

The story line finally disappointed me when Noah tried to kill Lucius, and from that point on everything just "Hollywooded".
From the characters you see in the first part of the movie,
Noah would never kill anybody, least of all Lucius.
Niether Ivy or Lucius would not be so careless with Noah to not try to console him.
Ivy would not go slap him repeatedly after the incident.
Noah would not try to kill Ivy in the woods.
Ivy would know it was Noah in the woods. Remember, she is blind and she played with Noah way too much to not know.

After all, Noah was only mentally retarded. That does not mean he is a psychopath with no empathy.
If the ending with the partol cop wasn't so brilliant, I would say the movie was ruined half way through.

Well, at least the first half was a uncommonly beautiful love story.