The Village, part I: Motifs and story arcAv Dag SødtholtBefore The Visit came M. Night Shyamalan's early masterpiece The Village. Mismarketed and misunderstood as a horror movie, it has gained a following as a mood piece of pastoral beauty, intense emotion and stylised lyricism.
International EditionLady in the Water, Part II: Self-reflexivity and visual stylisation [4]Av Dag SødtholtA return to this severely under-appreciated film, for its discussion of storytelling, interpretation, film criticism, artificiality, stylisation, interconnectedness – and whether stories can become real. [4]
International EditionThe Happening, Part III: Do you think it could be plants?Av Dag SødtholtA Shyamalan enthusiast is struggling mightily to come to terms with the conundrum of The Happening, a split identity film that swings wildly between excellence, rampant quirkiness and unchecked hysteria.
International EditionUnbreakable, Part II: Motifs and colourAv Dag SødtholtM. Night Shyamalan's enigmatic superhero thriller is a film where everything seems to be connected to everything else. We look at various motifs and colour codings that move in intricate and sometimes very strange patterns.
Louder Than Bombs: Joachim Trier’s play on perspectiveAv Dag SødtholtAs so often in films, Louder Than Bombs is not a dissertation, but a meditation on its themes and motifs. Seen in isolation, words and deeds may seem unexceptional – it is as a whole that Joachim Trier film takes flight.
The Village, part II: A tapestry of charactersAv Dag SødtholtAfter a general evaluation of this M. Night Shyamalan tour de force, the large cast of characters and their relationships are examined, with a special emphasis on subtext and how that is expressed through mise-en-scène.
International EditionUnbreakable, Part I: Characters and relationshipsAv Dag SødtholtOur in-depth look at M. Night Shyamalan's early films continues with Unbreakable: perhaps the only mainstream Hollywood formalist film, a mass-market movie approached with an unrelenting European art film sensibility.
Desperate connections: An analysis of Anne Sewitsky’s Homesick (2015)Av Dag Sødtholt"Homesick primarily plays on the unspoken. Dialogues are marked by pauses and silent tensions between characters. Most films increase their pace towards a climax, but in Sewitsky the pauses just grow longer and more pregnant."
Signs, Part III: Dreams, demons and birdsAv Dag SødtholtSigns offers rich allegorical subtexts of dreams, magic and the aliens as metaphors for the characters' inner demons. We also chart references to The Birds, and analyse the masterful cellar sequence and the film's ending.
International EditionThe Sixth Sense, Part I: Stature and Style [1]Av Dag SødtholtA stunning piece of high-precision filmmaking, formally inventive, thematically intelligent, emotionally gripping, a momentous commercial success, an almost perfect film. [1]
Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar, plan B: A modern mythAv Dag SødtholtThis second of three analytical articles on Interstellar explores themes: identity, religion, lies and truth, inflexible worldviews, and the difference between the imagined and the experienced.
International EditionM. Night Shyamalan’s Old: Twelve against timeAv Dag SødtholtAlthough the framing story and twist are surprisingly prosaic, for long stretches of the main body M. Night Shyamalan's Old conjures up a combination of tension, absurdity and chaos that few other films have achieved.
International EditionThe Sixth Sense, Part III: Motifs and a FuneralAv Dag SødtholtWe conclude our in-depth analysis of M. Night Shyamalan's masterpiece with a close look at motifs and structural aspects, concluding with a shot-by-shot commentary on the post-funeral sequence.
After Earth, Part I: Much better than you thinkAv Dag SødtholtWith the artistic, commercial and critical success of his two latest films, it is about time to soberly unearth the very real qualities of M. Night Shyamalan's disproportionally maligned middle period.
Joachim Trier’s Thelma (2017) Part I: What does it all mean?Av Dag SødtholtZeitgeist is replaced by timelessness, chamber music by a symphony. The systematically unpredictable Thelma is Joachim Trier and his team's most sonorous, lyrical and adventurous film.
Split, Part III: Meeting of multiple mindsAv Dag SødtholtThe cat-and-mouse sessions between psychiatrist and patient form a thrilling acting laboratory, where M. Night Shyamalan's fundamentally static set-ups are done with rigour and discreet invention. Bonus: film references.
