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by Jennifer Alpeche Published: January 8, 2003
“It’s happening.” ”Signs” stars Mel Gibson as Graham Hess. A former reverend who’s lost his faith as a result of his wife’s death six months prior. On his farm in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, he raises his two children: son Morgan (Rory Culkin) and daugther Bo (Abigail Breslin). Also living on the farm is Graham’s younger brother Merrill (Joaquin Phoenix) who could have been a professional baseball player -- only he could never quite discipline his swing. These four characters are the story. There are only two other characters of note in the film: veterinarian Ray Reddy (Shyamalan), whose actions have an enormous impact on Graham and his family, and Caroline Paski (Cherry Jones), the local police officer who is both law enforcement and friend. But these characters serve their purpose and then disappear. “Signs” is about one family, the Hess family, and how it deals with alien invasion, faith, and each other. The film moves swiftly, yet it has no bombs, explosions, or car chases. It is a quiet film, one that relies on dialogue and character interaction. It is a story. A tale to be told. And Gibson, Phoenix, Culkin, and Breslin do a wonderful job in doing just that. I was invested in the Hess family from the very start and that is critical to the film’s success: to care for the characters. All that happens in the film, happens to them. If we did not care about Graham, Merrill, Morgan, and Bo (and the two family dogs), then the film would fail. The payoff is not the alien monster. It’s not a big showdown with fighter jets and spaceships. No, the payoff is far more personal. It’s about the Hess family and their strength to overcome fear and bitterness. To pull together and lean on each other. To hang tight when everything else goes dark. Now on DVD, “Signs” can be watched in a more intimate setting. Watching it, the viewer sits up a little straigter. Leans forward a little more. Tries to see what’s coming before it does, as suspense builds and builds. We watch it on the edge of our seats. And to achieve this, it relies not on special effects, but on viewer imagination. It makes us part of the experience. As executive producer Kathleen Kennedy noted in “the effects of Signs”, M. Night Shaymalan disarms us with time and our own expectations. Home-viewing will perhaps prove even more effective, given that the events of the film happen in the same environment that the viewer is in. For me, the film was still very mysterious, very suspenseful. The sound of a knife scraping a kitchen counter. An axe knocking out a basement light. A strange dialogue between two alien soldiers heard over a baby monitor. A little boy’s painful asthma attack and a father’s calming words. A something strange moving through cornstalks. It’s all there. With the DVD, we can also look for those telling clues strategically placed throughout the film. Although, I do wish there was a segment about those symbols. Those signs. But the DVD doesn’t offer many extras and given that “Signs” was such an enormous success, I had hoped that we’d get a DVD full of goodies. Unfortunately, we don’t. The film is still classic, but the DVD does not live up to that high bar. However, what it does include is pretty cool,.if basic. Storyboards we learn are very important to Shyamalan. Once he has the storyboard complete, he knows he has his film. All that’s left is to film it. And watching the storyboards featurette, one can see that “Signs” was filmed bascially as it ws conceived during the storyboard stage. There are two scenes highlighted: Graham, the knife, and the pantry Graham and Merill chase the unknown trespasser For these storyboards, the viewer can select from three different audio tracks: 5.1. final mix, 5.1. score only, and 5.1 effects only. Once the scene begins to play, it lets us toggle between the storyboard telling and the actual scene in the film. The film nearly overlaps the storyboard exactly. In addition to this, we also get a 22-minute commentary with Shyamalan and five short segments on the film’s production, design, score, and special effects. In these behind-the-scenes clips, we hear from the actors and creative team, including production designer Larry Fulton, storyboard artist Brick Mason, and composer James Newton Howard. Shyamalan praises his team and his actors, grateful that Gibson, Phoenix, Culkin, and Breslin were so zoned in to what he wanted to bring to the screen. He marvels at their performances more than once. And having acted in the film himself, he appreciates their talents all the more. As a dialogue-driven film, without the right actors, the film would have been lost. It wasn’t. Also included are five deleted scenes, which unfortunately have no commentary. We do not know why they were deleted or what their significance was in the original script and storyboard. However, we can guess. I wished there was a short commentary to frame each one, but for some reason, this was decided against. Shyamalan does provide a brief introduction to the last bonus on the DVD: a one-minute home movie of the director’s first attempt at an “alien” movie. He warns us that the acting is terrible (courtesy of a young Shyamalan himself) and the special effects: bad. Though short, it’s a cute snippet from his archives. And that is essentially all there is, as far as bonus material is concerned. It’s too bad we didn’t get some promotional segments dedicated to the film’s beautiful posters and intriguing TV spots. Although it’s not original material, at least it would have rounded out the bonus section with some reminders of the road to, and the release of, “Signs” -- as it has made its way to over $400M worldwide. The film is a thoughtufl, mysterious thriller and perhaps that was the thinking behind its extras. To make them as minimal as possible? To keep the mystery intact? I am not sure. One other thing that makes one wonder is the artwork. The final poster for “Signs” -- the one of the house and extending crop circle, washed over by red and orange -- is beautiful and was used in all the promotion, from theater ads to newsprint. Yet upon the film’s release on DVD and video, the characters have been added. The coloring is also much darker, framed by black and shadow. The DVD’s menu is also very dark. Designed as a fuzzy TV screen with the all-important baby monitor in the center. There seems to be a reason for it all, but I’m still figuring it out. So the experience of watching “Signs” on DVD lasts. Questions are asked and no real answers are given, but that’s part of what made it such a great film to begin with. The discussion. “Swing away.” Overall Rating: A for the film, C+ for the DVD. |
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