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Aghast vision of ghosts
by CarlosC (movies profile)
Oct 17, 2006
18
of
22 people found this review helpful
Nicole Kidman juggles raising her two, special needs children, and fighting the psychic disturbances in her old Victorian mansion in the fog-veiled Channel Islands, in this variation on the familiar, old haunted house theme. Fionnula Flanagan leads a starchy trio of housekeepers who come help Kidman look after the house, and coach her through her fits and bouts of poltergeist affliction. At first, Kidman is wary of her precocious daughter (Alakina Mann)'s reports of "intruders." But, Kidman cannot deny what she perceives with her own ears and eyes.
THE OTHERS has been compared to THE SIXTH SENSE (1999) for its deferment of plot secrets until the very last minute, which will not be spoiled here, because it works. THE OTHERS has more in common with SIXTH SENSE, including an approach to on-screen ghosts that avoids the lavish and over-the-top stylings of movies like THE HAUNTING and THE HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL (both, 1999). Director Alejandro Amenábar has shown in his previous movies, especially 1997's ABRE LOS OJOS (OPEN YOUR EYES), a penchant for plots in which a perceived reality is pulled out from under our feet, forcing us, and the characters on screen, to scramble for safe footing, with effectual results. In that respect, Amenábar's movies are psychological as much as they are supernatural thrillers.
Some of the feelings that might drive these stories are universal ones: the strong yearning for redemption, and for a second chance, that keeps the movie's ghosts from departing, is a mournful, sympathetic desire. Kidman's husband has gone off to the war, and she and the kids wish so hard for him to come back, that he does. Except that, when he does, he is a specter of his former self. He looks as if he's *seen* a ghost -- perhaps, many of them. The metaphors could be extended at some length. In the end, he himself is a metaphor, whether imagined or real, he represents the emptiness he left behind, and the continuing emptiness of his return fills the same void. As Thomas Wolfe said, "You can't go home again."
The movie integrates the pathos of war in a manner reminiscent of GODS AND MONSTERS (1998), about the director of FRANKENSTEIN, whose personal losses, including both the loss of loved ones and of his own innocence, come back to haunt his loneliness. There's a strain through THE OTHERS that might explain the story as simply one woman going insane, which is what the back story tells us already took place (pay attention to this undercurrent of plot). In spite of all this fidelity to characters and story line, THE OTHERS is a diffuse horror movie in that it becomes so engrossed in its own plot machinations, that it seems to forget that our purpose in coming here was to be scared. But, in other respects, THE OTHERS is such a good movie that the criticism that it's not as scary as it might have been -- which might have sunk a lesser film -- seems like a nit-picky afterthought.
(Carlos Colorado) |
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