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Review Archive
FILMS
Unbreakable (2000)M. Night Shyamalan wowed audiences in 1999 with his creepy thriller The Sixth Sense. I remember when Unbreakable was just hitting the theaters how much I hoped that Shyamalan wasn't just a one-hit wonder. I really wanted Unbreakable to be good. I had been itching for a director or writer who I could really get behind. Someone who, when I heard about their next project, I'd get excited because I just knew it'd be good. Someone who's film I'd always go see on the opening weekend. Someone who I could trust to make a quality film. Someone who understood that the first ingredient in movie-making is the script—and that if it don't look good on paper, it ain't gonna look much better when it's running at 24 frames per second.
Shyamalan has proven to be such a filmmaker. He writes incredible stories—and to top that off, he's capable of artfully directing his own script. Not to put too fine a point on it: he understands the medium and can manipulate it with extreme skill.
The wonderful thing about Unbreakable is the obvious care that went into making the film. David Dunn (Willis) is a security guard with marital problems. When the train he's on gets derailed and kills everyone aboard but him, doctors are baffled. Over 100 people died, but he walked away without a scratch. He's contacted by Elijah Price (Jackson), a dealer in fine comic art, who has developed a strange theory on the history of pictorial storytelling in conjunction with his degenerative bone disease, Osteogenesis Imperfecta. He believes that Dunn could, however impossible sounding, be a hero—the kind written about in comic books.
Once this premise is delivered, the following plot is fairly straight forward. Please note that I did not say "boring." I think a lot of people confuse the two. Unbreakable is simple, yet elegant, never boring—and there's so many lovely details in Unbreakable that it demands multiple viewings.
Elijah Price's childhood nickname was Mr. Glass—and Shyamalan follows through on this conceit in his cinematography. The first moment we see the baby Elijah is in the reflection of a mirror. In a scene where a young Elijah is afraid to go outside, part of the scene is shot through the reflection of a television screen. When we first see Elijah as an adult, he's speaking with a customer in his gallery and the two men are reflected in the glass that covers a piece of art. Even the shaft of Price's cane is made from glass. These details are not necessary to notice, and it's no big deal if you miss them—but when you pick up on them, they make the movie just that much more enjoyable.
Unbreakable is a film about comics—and as such carries the comic feel into the film without exaggeration. Elements such as color and framing are such important elements in comics that's it's nice to know that Shyamalan didn't leave them behind.
Much of Unbreakable is filmed with muted greens and tans. And then, every once in a while, a color will pop out at you—the red jacket of the woman in the train station; the orange Post-It note that has Dunn's train information on it; the continuing use of purple in association with Elijah Price. These are all comic colors that, in contrast against the rest of the faded film, jump right out at you.
The pacing and framing of shots in Unbreakable is an art unto itself. Shyamalan thankfully doesn't feel the need to follow the God-awful trend of fast cuts and wild camera angles that make you feel like your on a roller-coaster. I'm not saying quick-cuts are bad. It's a good technique and can be very effective when the script calls for it—but it seems that for some directors, it's their only technique. Unbreakable has some very long takes, that, if you're not watching carefully, you'll swear there was a cut in there somewhere. Shyamalan shoots long scenes without cutting, but takes special care never to make the shot boring. For instance, the scene of Dunn on the train is a long take—but the camera moves back and forth between two seat-backs which creates the illusion of cutting. Like I said: simple, but elegant.
One last thing, and I thought this was another nice little detail: David Dunn's initials, "DD." It's a long-standing tradition to give comic characters first and last names that begin with the same letter, i.e., Peter Parker, Lois Lane, J. Jonah Jameson, Lex Luthor, Matt Murdock, Reed Richards, Bruce Banner, Scott Summers, etc. You get the idea.
If you happen to have the means, I highly suggest picking up the DVD. It contains a separate disc loaded with special features, interviews (with the actors and comic writers/artists), and other goodies that offer hours of Shyamalanian pleasure.
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