by June Pulliam
Signs. M. Night Shyamalan, 2002.
In a sense, M. Night Shyamalan is always making the same movie--about the
individual’s quest to understand how he fits into the cosmos.
I use the male pronoun here, because Shyamalan’s protagonists are
always male. The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable are about individuals
coming to terms with their own special gifts, talents that rational, 21st
century humans don’t believe they have. But Signs is not about extraordinary
individuals endowed with special powers to see what we can’t. Instead,
Signs is about the everyday man’s struggle to come to terms with a world
that may be the product of an extraordinary being, if you will, someone or
something that has crafted a universe where there are no accidents.
Many see atheism as a frightening belief system as its logical conclusion
is that we’re not special, and thus, we’re on our own. If Vishnu isn’t at
the center of the universe pulling levers with her many arms (as she is pictured
in an episode of The Simpsons), or God isn’t in heaven making a list
and checking it twice, or Roma Downey isn’t flitting around giving humans
the impetus to do good deeds, then it is up to mere mortals to roll up their
sleeves and make this world a better place. The knowledge that matter is
never created nor destroyed, and thus, when we die, our atoms continue to
be part of an ever-changing universe, provides little consolation for most.
But even more frightening is the possible existence of a supreme intelligence.
This is the premise of M. Night Shyamalan’s newest film.
Graham Hess (Mel Gibson), a former minister who has lost his faith after
the death of his wife in a car accident 6 months before the film opens, has
left the ministry. Now he spends his days tending to his rural Pennsylvania
farm with his brother Merril and raising his two children. But when Graham
discovers massive and intricate crop circles in his field, his life, and
the lives of everyone on earth, change forever. Any viewer literate in popular
culture knows within the first five minutes of the film that these crop circles
are a sort of signage made by aliens in order to direct others to our planet
for the purpose of an invasion. But the film isn’t about how “we are not
alone” in the sense that there are aliens in the universe, but rather, or
also, its message is we are not alone in the sense that there are no accidents.
Instead, events in the universe are all an unfolding of an intricate plan
hatched by a supreme intelligence that is so alien to our limited understanding
we can’t possibly begin to know its nature or fathom its reasoning.
During a conversation with his brother about the meaning of the crop circles,
Graham says that the world is broken into two types of people. The first
type believe that everything occurs due to chance. We’re just as likely to
win the lottery as get struck by lightening, and whichever happens isn’t
because of some cosmic plan, but instead, blind luck. The second type
of people would interpret their lottery winnings or unexpected conduction
of electricity as something signifying a divine will. Lottery winners
must have pleased God, and victims of lightning strikes are similarly being
punished for their transgressions. Since his wife’s death, Graham now locates
himself in the second camp since he can’t believe that the divine being he’s
spent his life serving would let something so terrible happen to him. Furthermore,
his wife’s last words seemed to be the random firings of her brain rather
than a privileged glance into the proverbial tunnel of light that conducts
us to the other side.
By the end of the movie, Graham has regained his faith as the events of the
past few days have convinced him that we live in an ordered universe, perhaps
with a supreme being who is more than a great watchmaker or a cosmic deadbeat
dad. So we are not alone in the sense that there is a divine being watching
out for his or her creatures, and we are also not alone in that we can depend
on the love of friends and family to help us overcome terrible tragedies
such as the death of a loved one or an alien invasion. And the truly frightening
thing here isn’t the hideous aliens, who are a far cry from the gift-bearing
creature in The Day the Earth Stood Still (and why are advanced races
of people so often represented as creatures who don’t wear clothing?). Instead,
we are confronted with the far more frightening prospect that if the fabric
of time is purposefully woven with events that are not coincidence, then
there is no free will.
Shyamalan’s serious subject matter is relieved by many comic moments in the
film. At one point, Graham’s five year old daughter comes to him in the middle
of the night to request a glass of water since she believes that there’s
a monster at her door. At another point, when Graham finds one of the aliens
locked in a pantry, he tries to coax the creature out of hiding by impersonating
a police officer. This comedic element is something missing in so many failed
horror films, as directors less proficient at their craft don’t realize that
the sense of fear is rendered more intense by contrasting it with other equally
intense emotions.
Absent from the film are any expensive special effects. The aliens are ugly
to be sure, but their presence is rendered more disturbing due to their relative
absence from the screen. Rarely are the aliens viewed head on. Instead, they’re
shown in darkness, fleeing, or reflected in the blade of a knife or a television
screen. These were all wise decisions on the part of the director, especially
since the film is finally not really about aliens or alien invasions at all.