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this movie was interesting and intriguing from many angles:
1. power of suggestion.
the media hype. most, if not all commercials, claimed it to be a horror movie. thus, many people going into the movie figured that's what it would be. it was the power of suggestion to the consumer.
the dialect used in the movie was not specific to anything, but it "felt" to be old, and thus led the viewer to believe that the people in the village were in some "olden time", though there never was a reference to what year it was.
in the movie itself, amongst the characters, it was always suggested that "those of which we do not speak" will not harm the villagers, as long as they know their place. people didn't question it, and went along with it.
2. power of fear/use of fear to control people
again, using the villagers fear of the unknown to get them to do what the elders wanted them to do- stay put, not travel outside of the borders of the village.
3. metaphor for today's society/culture... seemingly so easily manipulated/controlled
this film had an understated political tone. with a film like farenheit 9/11, or an old one like dr. strangelove, the director was very upfront and direct with the message. the village was not... the power of suggestion, the power of fear in this movie, combined with what was in today's society in the real world (the newspaper read by m. night in the end, and the announcements on the radio about the latest casualties in iraq). i thought the message was subtle.
overall, i thought the acting was top notch from a few people- bryce dallas howard did a phenomenal job as ivy, joaquin phoenix as lucious, and adrien brody as the mentally disturbed noah.
i don't think the movie did particularly well or was well accepted because american audiences tend to go into a movie, and expect the expected. we tend not to want a movie that will have/make us think, or look for a meaning in a movie/try to figure out if there's something else the director's trying to tell us. especially in a summer movie, where all we expect is blockbuster's, not stories and subtleties.
while i don't think "the village" was a perfect movie, i think it was much better than it was received by the public.
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An individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of inprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for the law. - Martin Luther King, Jr.
The media's the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that's power. Because they control the minds of the masses. - Malcolm X
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