Directed by M. Night Shyamalan
Written by M. Night Shyamalan
Starring Bruce Willis, Samuel L. Jackson, Robin Wright Penn, Spencer Treat Clark
USA, 2000
Rated PG-13 (intense violent imagery, a sexual reference)
What I appreciate about both Unbreakable and its predecessor is the way their plots are like puzzles; once the final scene is over, they make perfect, circular sense. Shyamalan’s use of deliberate pacing is also pretty artful, if at times messy, particularly in this new film. In Unbreakable, Bruce Willis returns, embodying in a brilliantly subdued performance a character who is, essentially, the flipside of his Malcolm Crowe role in last year’s Shyamalan success. This time, the protagonist is alive, and very much so. The film starts off with a great piece of moviemaking. As David Dunn (Willis) sits alone on a train, an attractive woman comes to sit next to him. David removes his wedding ring and the two strike up an ordinarily uncomfortable conversation as the camera moves back and forth between the seats, as if revealing secrets. The scene is very effective cinematic storytelling in which we learn about the characters by entirely visual means. It is a poignant moment that is also doom-laden, with ominous sounds screaming in the background prophesying disaster. We get the feeling, even in the first scene, that Willis’ character, like in The Sixth Sense, is stuck in a web of inevitability and destiny. Shyamalan creates a world where tightly kept secrets and enigmas leak into the atmosphere.
The train crashes off-screen and David becomes the only surviving passenger. He goes home to his estranged wife and child (Spencer Treat Duncan in what I regret to say is an irritating, Haley-aping, pout-and-cry performance), but his mind itches with the mystery of his survival. Has he ever even been sick a day in his life? Is he invincible? These questions are pressed upon him by a purple-clad, Gothic figure named Elijah Price (Samuel L. Jackson), an eccentric comic book aficionado. He presents his theory to David: he believes comic books are illustrated histories of supernatural beings who lived long ago. Elijah’s bones have been extremely fragile since the day he was born, so he has always thought that there must be someone on the other end of the spectrum, who is unbreakable. These days, it seems few extraordinary things happen, but he believes that David is a modern-day Superman.
Unbreakable is piled high with astounding tricks that the subtle Sixth Sense lacked. Visually, Shyamalan seems more adventurous. While Tak Fujimoto’s cinematography for the latter film was delicately melancholy, Eduardo Serra films this one as if the whole thing occurred on a rainy day (which probably has some correlation to David’s superhero kryptonite: water). The film is great fun but it may still make you down in the dumps simply because its dark visual style is so penetrating and one of its boldest assets. Shyamalan also shows a knack for crafting one-shot scenes that pay attention to tiny, intriguing human nuances that ground the fantastical tale. He is more blatantly spiritual here, too. In a recent issue of Rolling Stone, he tells of his childhood, his Hindu faith, and his life-long belief in ghosts and spirits. The mysticism that has affected his life has affected his work; Unbreakable is ultimately boiled down to the battle of good and evil.
The film deals directly with what is the foundation of possibly every story ever written, and certainly most every religion. At the root of most human conflicts is, in fact, the difference in opinion of what is good and what is evil. Unbreakable argues that evil is completely natural, even that good cannot exist without evil and that evil can illuminate good. The film explores this yin-and-yang sensibility, this strange, eternal symbiosis between these immense spiritual forces. In a scathing New York Press review, Armond White made the odd charge that the film is racist. Of course, who on earth would believe that racial dissing was Shyamalan’s main intention when making this film? But White does have some good ideas; Unbreakable includes subtle use of stereotypes that have been passed down from generation to generation for centuries and centuries, seeping so deeply into our consciousness that they have become the accepted rules of life. In the film, the white, physically gifted man is the good guy and the black, crippled man is the villain. If Unbreakable is charged with racism, it must also be charged with discrimination against the physically disabled. White’s accusations seem extremely off-the-mark, but they do shine light on one of the film’s subtexts: the broad yet limiting nature of the idea of good and evil, and the stereotypical, matter-of-factly black-and-white nature of comic book characters. The fact that Elijah’s ideas of the supernatural and the spiritual are all culled from his knowledge of comic books says something about the state of spirituality today. People are so misguided and sickened by the everyday religions that they’re beginning to make things up out of pop culture, out of thin air. David eventually comes to represent good in the film and derives strength and spirituality from inside himself while Elijah ends up representing evil, deriving strength and spirituality from involving himself with the strength and spirituality of others.
Shyamalan finally hits a glitch a few seconds before the credits roll. For the nth time this year, I find myself perplexed at why visually masterful directors need to tie loose ends with instructive epilogues. Unbreakable ends with two titles explaining what happens later in the story, and the feeling is cheap and hurried, closing the splendid open ending. This is a minor criticism, though, and the closing explanatory titles do give the ending a further sense of inevitability, as if the characters cannot escape what is bound to happen: the triumph of good and the defeat of evil. Shyamalan’s problems with pacing this time could have been expected since this film is more complex than the more conclusive Sixth Sense. And perhaps the beginning is given too much weight, and the resolution comes too quick. However, Unbreakable is only about the forging of the David-Elijah partnership. We can imagine a life-long relationship between them (that is, until those spoiler titles appear). The film could have easily spawned an unnecessary string of sequels.
But these problems are only the signs of a maturing artist fiddling around with new elements in his familiar territory of the spiritual thriller. Unbreakable has the child-like imagination of comic books, but has some of the sophistication of esoteric dramas. Shyamalan is talking about the elation brought about by spiritual discovery and about the struggle that automatically comes with being spiritual. What’s promising about the film is that he exhibits how much he is in tune with his pop audience, throwing some of the elation and struggle of filmmaking and film-going in with his astonishing fable.
By Andrew Chan [DEC. 26, 2000]