The Village

(Herald rating * * * *)

There are some things we know for certain about this movie: it was written and directed by M Night Shyamalan, and like most of his work, it is a psychological thriller.

There are many more things that we don't know about this movie, like exactly when and where it is taking place, and that is the way this exceptional film-maker wants it. Whether he succeeds completely is open to debate.

We open at a funeral, the clothes and manners and speech indicating an Amish-style community, so we're probably in the film-maker's home state of Pennsylvania, where almost all his work is set. The signs are that it's the funeral of a boy in 1897.

Slowly, almost as though we have our noses to a windowpane, we gather that this is a strongly religious group who live in a settlement that they call "the Village". Edward Walker (William Hurt) is the leader of the elders who run the community. They reject "the Towns" and their wicked ways, clustering in their village deep in the woods.

In the woods, we learn, are creatures known as Those We Don't Speak Of. Children are warned not to go into the woods — TWDSO kill small animals like dogs and leave their bodies around the outskirts of the Village as warnings. They paint red stripes on houses because red is The Bad Colour that can't be named, either. At night the Village people light fires and set guards to protect their families. Sometimes we see one of TWDSO, clawed, wearing a red cloak.

Now the scene has been set, we find two youngsters, brave and moody Lucius Hunt (Joaquin Phoenix), and Ivy (Bryce Dallas Howard, daughter of film-maker Ron), blind, possibly possessing a sixth sense, want to leave the Village and head through the Woods into the Towns.

What will happen — will they get away, will TWDSO get them, what awaits them in the Towns? Will there be a twist that you couldn't possibly foresee? Oh, come on, I told you this was a pyscho-thriller so I'm not giving it away.

Fans of this Hitchcock-like director have been entranced and puzzled by The Sixth Sense, Signs, Unbreakable, and they'll doubtless be won over from the first frames. Sometimes it seems that M Night Shyamalan is being deliberately obscure; some critics have suggested the Indian-born, American-raised film-maker is creating a fable about a post-September 11 America obsessed with unseen foreign terrorists.

Perhaps. On any level, it's well worth leaving the bach and getting it out of the local video store over the holidays.

The DVD features little more than some deleted scenes and a longer-than-usual making-of feature, Deconstructing the Village.

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