Movie Review -- The Buried Secret of M. Night Shyamalan

I watched the SciFi documentary on the film director M. Night Shyamalan. This was probably done in anticipation for his upcoming movie The Village (2004) which you may have heard about. Shyamalan is well known as the director of several successful movies including Signs (2002), Unbreakable (2000), Stuart Little (1999), Wide Awake (1998) and The Sixth Sense (1999) . (I thought THE SIXTH SENSE was an especially wonderful movie!)

I had to watch this documentary because of all the anticipation building up with SciFi's advertising. I had to know what the "buried secret of M. Night Shyamalan," was! Well... I like the documentary although it took a bit of slow going to get to the points of the piece. I felt a lot more suspense from the advertising for it rather than while watching the documentary. This documentary film team did get a bit over dramatic about their search making the simple questioning of people on the street seem dizzying. That is show business! This is an interesting peek into the spirit of documentaries. The people who are doing the investigations seemed to lie openly and quite freely, driven by their insatiable curiosity. I think it is great that they show how the information is actually obtained.

Towards the beginning of the tape, the documentary team comes upon a small group of teenage boys standing by the gate of Shyamalan's home. They are not supposed to be there... any of them. But the doc goes beyond the approved list of who they are supposed to speak to. "Don't you know the secret?" this group of lurking teenagers ask. It turns out that Shyamalan is connected to the "other side" according to this small and literally hooded group.

One of the teenagers takes the film crew back to his home and consults the Ouija board. (His mom did not mind.) Without touching the board, the indicator suddenly snaps towards the "YES" location when asked if Shyamalan is connected to the other side. They had to use his real first name, Manoj, to get a response. Both the young man and the documentary leader pull their hands back up and into the air assuming a sort of "I surrender" posture at the sudden movement. If you notice the position of the teenager's finger furthest from the camera's point of view, it is in the wrong place for someone who has suddenly flung their hands up in surprise. I strongly suspect he flicked the indicator with his inside finger since it is bent while the rest of his fingers are back. Now let me tell you, I have seen boards move a lot without any trickery, that is not what I am talking about. I just thought I would point this situation as a possible prank. If you have it on tape, take a look. If the other stuff on the tape is true, this takes away from some of its believability for me personally.

If you do not want to see a spoiler to this doc, do not move on in reading this...

Towards the end the secret finally is squeezed out. It turns out that Shyamalan drowned in an icy pond in his youth and was brought back to life after approximately 35 minutes. There are no medical records provided to support this but the documentary comes to this conclusion through investigation. That certainly would give Shyamalan Shaman status in some cultures. The documentary leader approaches Shyamalan about making movies about his own life. There are striking elements in the director's life that are also presented in his movies. His character drowns in an icy pool, a young boy sees dead people, another character is never ill. Shyamalan is upset about the question posed and never directly answers it. Now this is where I can see a problem. These films may possess elements and ideas from the directors life, however, they may not actually be exactly biographical. From the scenes I saw from THE VILLAGE, I certainly hope that is the case!


I did find it interesting that Shyamalan may be a Shamanic type person. I think that is even wonderful. He is a very fine young director with a surprising hit after hit at the box offices. I even believe that he is potentially tapped in to the other side on some level, since that is the way I comprehend his movies. He generously gives an important point of view in his movies and a refreshing element of surprise. If he is a Shaman type person, I wonder why he would need to hide this fact? Could this just be a publicity plot to finally release this information?

Shyamalan only works within a certain radius of his home. He refuses to shoot outside this area. The reason given in the documentary for this is that a Shaman's power is often considered to be local in nature. I never thought of that! It is interesting since I never heard a difference, hearing about experiences with travelers as well.

Give a shout out to Shyamalan! I say if he is Shaman or connected to the other side more power to him! Go for it. I have no problems with those who walk in both worlds at once and give the rest of us a small part of that vision... especially when they result in some great pieces of film art.

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http://www.scifi.com/mnight/press/ to follow the news stories about the controversy over this documentary.

http://www.cnn.com/2004/SHOWBIZ/TV/07/17/biography.hoax.ap/ Television network admits it lied about unauthorized biography, CNN