Storytelling & Commission: Fantastic Voyage

The Sixth Sense (1999)

Directed by M. Night Shyamalan

Cutting Edges Film Review

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M. Night Shyamalan creates a film that constantly changes your mind, keeping the plot twisted throughout. The Sixth Sense is about Cole, a young wimpyish boy who has a secret and confines in Dr. Malcolm Crowe who is a child psychologist. The film begins with someone breaking into Dr. Malcolms home that happens to be one of his old patients, and a gun is fired. A year has pasted and Dr. Malcolm has a new patient, Cole and sets to find out why this boy is so frightened to confine in someone. During the film you find out Coles secret is he can see dead people. Just by the look of him, all pale, weeney and even the way he talks There are no cutesy concessions here: you have no problem believing that he's suffering visitations from bruised, cut-up housewives, teenagers who blew their brains out and various other grisly apparitions. (Total Film, 1999) He describes the feeling when a ghost is close like Goosebumps and that everything goes cold. Cole also

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says that these dead people only see things they want to see. The ghosts had been attacking him for reasons he dont know and when he tells Dr. Malcolm he suggests he tries talking to them. He begins to take his advice and the ghosts start being nice they just want to say things to there loved ones they hadnt done before. The way Shyamalan reveals the plot is clever. The solution to many of the film's puzzlements is right there in plain view, and the movie hasn't cheated, but the very boldness of the storytelling carried me right past the crucial hints and right through to the end of the film, where everything takes on an intriguing new dimension. (Ebert, 1999) Bruce Willis who plays Dr. Malcolm is always alone and is never seen interacting with another character apart from at the beginning, he goes to visit his wife but she always ignores him, which seems a bit strange. Later on you see his wife at work and hands a gift to a colleague she goes to kiss him and then a window smashes, it cuts to Dr. Malcolm running away. Its almost as if he himself is a ghost but doesnt know it.

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Although parts of the films make you jump and some of the make-up on the actors arent nice to see, the film starts off as a thriller in that sense but as soon as you find out these ghosts just want help that thriller genre kind of disappears and turns into a love story. It is this unfortunate slide into absurdity, rather than the film's now infamous final plot twist, which is The Sixth Sense's chief characteristic at the end, and stops it from being the classic chiller it could have been. (Bradshaw, 1999) Having a tear jerker ending, finding out that Bruce Willis was a ghost all along, and seeing Cole confine to his mother, your going to need a tissue by this point.

Bibliography:
Text: Bradshaw, Peter. Available at: http://www.theguardian.com/film/News_Story/Critic_Review/Guardian_review /0,,99731,00.html (Accessed online on 20th March 2014) Ebert, Roger. Available at: http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-sixthsense-1999 (Accessed online on 20th March 2014) Total Film. Available at: http://www.totalfilm.com/reviews/cinema/the-sixthsense (Accessed online on 20th March 2014) Images: Fig 1. The Sixth Sense (1999) From: The Sixth Sense. Directed by M. Night Shyamalan [Film Poster] American. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/6/66/The_sixth_sense.jpg/4 16px-The_sixth_sense.jpg Fig 2. The Sixth Sense (1999) From: The Sixth Sense. Directed by M. Night Shyamalan [Film Still] American. http://www.myreviewer.com/Bluray/130517/The-Sixth-Sense/130569/Review-by-David-Beckett Fig 3. The Sixth Sense (1999) From: The Sixth Sense. Directed by M. Night Shyamalan [Film Still] American. http://3.bp.blogspot.com/NRmSYwpCsCc/UWvjxAsG44I/AAAAAAAAFL0/y1M7BJjgdn8/s320/6.JPG