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A Quick Note on Signs
01/12/2003

I had not seen Signs when I commented on Stephen Holden's New York Times review of the movie. He wrote, "Had 'Signs' resisted putting on the final angelic touch and showing its little green men, it might have offered us a mystery worth contemplating about the relationship between faith and fantasy." At the time, I took this as a sign of Holden's high-brow condescension but assumed that the movie toyed with this ambiguity throughout, making the decision only at the end. Having seen the movie, I contend that making this suggestion for Signs is akin to postulating that The Godfather would have been a better movie if it were left ambiguous whether the family was really mafiosi.

I now see how thoroughly Holden's view is indicative of the closed-mindedness of such people. So much is Holden averse to this message, so much does he consider it "low brow," "clinging and domestic," that he couldn't even intellectually understand the point of the movie, a point that he seems to believe was all too obvious.

"Signs," unlike "The Sixth Sense," grinds to a shallow, thudding conclusion. When an alien is finally pictured, this faceless leaping figure is about as scary as the Jolly Green Giant. And when Graham's faith is restored by an instant miracle, the imagery deployed by the director plays shamelessly on the Pietà.

First, I'm not sure what qualities of the clawed and menacing alien reminded Holden of the Jolly Green Giant. Second, I feel that it is beside the point. The movie didn't portray the aliens as some creepshow species but put forward that they were real and moved on from there. This is a crucial aspect of the film. As Graham explains midway through the movie, for non-believers, an alien invasion would signal a complete reshuffling of the rules of reality; for believers, it would merely be another unexpected part of earthly life.

More importantly, Graham's faith wasn't restored by some plot-saving, on-demand miracle; it was restored by his realization that those things that he took to be indications of the quirks — some troublesome — of cold reality were, in fact, miracles all along. The cross pictured in the end is not the crucifix replaced upon the wall, imposed upon it, but that inherently constituted in the design of a door.

I feel for Mr. Holden that he, a man whose career requires quick comprehension of symbols and implications, cannot even allow himself to make such observations.

(Credit where credit's due: although I like to think that I'd have spotted it anyway [and it is obvious], I knew to look for the cross in the door at the end thanks to Mark Shea's blog [you'll have to scroll down].)

Posted by Justin Katz @ 02:51 PM EST

3 comments

Justin -

At least he got one part right,

""Signs," unlike "The Sixth Sense," grinds to a shallow, thudding conclusion."

Melis (wife) and I watched this movie over the weekend. I thought it was a boring and poorly acted movie, Melis agreed. Although I jumped at the first dog bark in the movie. Unfortunately I was just starting to doze off as I lost interest in the movie so I had to suffer through the remainder.

John

John Venlet @ 01/13/2003 10:59 AM EST

John,

Hmm. Different tastes, I suppose: my wife and I both liked the movie. Mr. Shyamalan's movies do have a strange feel and pacing to them, and I can see where your reaction is not unimaginable.

Justin Katz @ 01/13/2003 03:38 PM EST

Count me as another who loved Signs. And it strikes me as in a crucial way the flip side to The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable. Both of those are stories about uncovering secret truths, and then responding to them as one must. But in Signs there are no secrets - the truth is out in plain view at every step. It's not always a palatable or welcome truth, but then that's life. The question in Signs is therefore not "What's going on?" but "Do I accept the truth of the world or do I deny it?"

Bruce Baugh @ 01/14/2003 12:48 AM EST