Before
her death in 1879 from tuberculosis of the bone, reputedly
the most excruciatingly painful disease of all, Marie Bernarde
Soubirous claims to have seen the Virgin Mary. However, she
did not articulate anything about the pain from which she
must have been suffering. Most believers say that God intervened
and replaced the sense of pain by providing Bernadette of
Lourdes, as she is now known, with a sixth sense. In the contemporary
United States, where half the children under age sixteen today
experience fights between parents who eventually divorce,
is there any way to heal their psychological pain? In The
Sixth Sense, directed and written by M. Night Shyamalan,
who gave up a possible career in medicine to make films, Cole
Sear (played by Haley Joel Osment) grows up in just such a
family, and he acquires a sixth sense-the ability to see ghosts
who do not know (or cannot accept the fact) that they are
dead. But his sixth sense does not replace his psychological
pain; the ghosts frighten Cole, and his efforts to negotiate
school and home life amid unanticipated apparitions results
in very unpleasant situations. Meanwhile, Malcolm Crowe (played
by Bruce Willis) is a child psychologist in Philadelphia whose
specialty is to help children of divorced parents to cope
with their fears and frustrations; although the city gave
him an award for his work, he felt guilty that he was not
successful in one particular case. Without giving away the
most important secret of the film, which prompts many to see
The Sixth Sense a second time, filmviewers
will observe how Malcolm first gains the confidence of Cole,
and then liberates him from the terror of frightening ghosts
by advising him to communicate with them and then to tell
his mother Lynn Sear (played by Toni Collette) so that she
can better understand and support him. Thus, the sixth sense
serves to replace the psychological pain, and we leave the
film believing that perhaps the apparitions will cease as
he reestablishes communication with his mother. Malcolm, satisfied
with his success in treating Cole, then learns to accept his
own fate and achieves peace of mind as well. Although the
tagline of the film is "Not every gift is a blessing," the
film should definitely appeal to those who have had difficulty
accepting a loss of an important family member, dead or alive.
The music and sound effects keep up the tension in what is
otherwise a rather slow-moving story that is clearly designed
to comfort those of all ages who fear death. MH
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