As a director who has been filming in Hollywood for a long time, Nate Shyamalan has always adhered to his own style and never succumbed to Hollywood's rules and patterns. From his early masterpiece "The Sixth Sense", he focused on the creation of atmosphere and suspense, and then More willing to play with and experiment with different types of structures and elements, and in recent years, new tricks have been discovered in the superhero genre, as evidenced by "Split" and "Mr. Glass" . After the epidemic, this year's new film "Old Age" once again returned to the thriller and horror theme on which he became famous, which really excited many fans.
Based on the French graphic novel Sand Castle, the new film follows 13 people who cannot leave a mysterious, secluded beach where dark secrets involving time are hidden. After Shyamalan's adaptation, this novel has become a hodgepodge experiment of various types , transitioning from a tourist vacation to an adventure plot of survival on a deserted island. During this period, horror and even sci-fi elements are constantly added, which is eye-opening. There are all kinds of body horror depictions, such as the twisted limbs during epilepsy, the bloody operation to open the stomach to remove the tumor, the crazy woman with broken hands and feet in the cave, etc. These cheap thriller plots are first-class, and they must be able to satisfy a lot. Fans of horror movies, but after thinking about it, they found that these are all outside the theme.
The story is about aging , and yet Shyamalan presents it with a tone of at times stupidity and seriousness , which naturally sparks a lot of controversy. In contrast, the attitudes of adults and children in the face of rapid aging are quite interesting. Children are eager to grow up as soon as possible and experience the wonders of life; while adults have a more complicated response, either panic and resist falling into madness, or calmly accept the decline of bodily functions and wait for death to come. The most outstanding feature of this work is the condensed physical space and time to elicit associations that are not limited to philosophical contemplation. This secluded stretch of sand has a fantastical tinge and is the stage for the director to fully express his personal style signature: the iconic panning shots, 360-degree panning shots, and images from the perspective of bones and tumors are unexpectedly interesting sex. The film progresses rapidly in contradictions and extreme emotions . Relaxation and tension, joy and sadness, comical lines and soulful and romantic dying scenes emerge unexpectedly at the same time. These strange perceptions continue until the final reversal. This reversal ending is estimated to have been conceived by the director for the sake of the circle, offsetting the cruelty of the original comics and being a bit out of tune with the theme. Shyamalan seems to be once again caught in the narrative dilemma of reversal for reversal's sake. It is difficult to decipher too deep meaning from this Hollywood-interested bright ending, and the realistic reference to the conspiracy theory of pharmaceutical labs seems weak here. . Aging is a necessary stage for everyone, and no one can escape the final death. If the ending can follow the tragedy of the original comics, it is estimated that this work will be recognized by more audiences.
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