When David Lynch passed away on January 15, 2025, I felt as if I had lost a deformed twin brother whom I admired greatly but also feared.

It was one of the most hated films of the 2000s, but with the trauma now at a distance, it is time to appreciate M. Night Shyamalan's Lady in the Water for its very real qualities. [1]

Our 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.

We look at three outstanding scenes in this better-than-you-think M. Night Shyamalan film, along with its pervasive motif of figures in a landscape, visual rhymes and many occasions of elegant staging.

We 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.

The 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.

A stunning piece of high-precision filmmaking, formally inventive, thematically intelligent, emotionally gripping, a momentous commercial success, an almost perfect film. [1]

With 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.

Signs 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.

The new leaner, meaner version of M. Night Shyamalan has made a bizarre but thoroughly gripping film, providing an emotionally deep understanding of why psychological survival mechanisms arise in abuse victims.

«Den overveldende, nazistiske ondskapen er sterkt til stede gjennom hele Harald Zwarts krigsfilm Den 12. mann, i tydelig kontrast til den norske motstandsbevegelsens preg av en solidaritet som ikke tøyles av egennytte.»

Before 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.

A visual analysis of key scenes of M. Night Shyamalan's masterpiece and his virtuoso use of motifs, staging and interconnectedness to achieve coherence and closure. [1]

I forbindelse med seminaret Digital Storytelling 2012 fikk Montages anledning til å snakke litt med WETA Digitals teknologisjef Sebastian Sylwan.

M. Night Shyamalan's visual style consists of a series of recurring formal devices. Watching Unbreakable feels like participating in a ritual where these devices are applied and reapplied, in new variations and combinations.

In Signs scenes do not only exist to drive the plot forward. Their formally distinctive staging creates additional layers, encouraging meanings and symbols, often enigmatic. [1]

«What gives a work the kind of mark of authenticity that can prompt the sophisticated cinephile to nod with approval and self-satisfaction at being able to appreciate such a difficult but worthwhile film?»

Mesterregissør Billy Wilders kynisme står sentralt i hans dekonstruksjon av helteskikkelsen i krigsfangefilmen Stalag 17, men den karikerte skildringen av antagonistene står i fare for å underminere filmens budskap.  [4]

Alt du ønsker å vite om Spike Jonzes Where the Wild Things Are? Vi har samlet linker til essensielt stoff om vinterens mest etterlengtede film. Let the wild rumpus start! [6]