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Rating: ....I see souls... they walk around us like any person...
The sixth sense, the gift of sensitivity, the fear of confiding to others the innate ability to dare more, realizing that only a few can perceive, the rare ability to see these trapped souls in the "eternal passage", either because they are obsessed with their anxieties, or because they still have something unresolved to "settle" before eternal peace. Death, a world traveling in our parallel everyday life, which one wants to deny due to the inability to penetrate it constructively, whether it is childish or adult, is a contemplation of life. A very profound and love-filled film, I would never place it among the thriller genres, but rather among parapsychology related to suspensions of subconscious fear.
Nominated for six Oscars, including Best Film and Editing (2000). Direction and scenography, both of innate talent, M. Night Shyamalan (with 2 Oscar nominations) a great admirer of another genius and master of suspense, Hitchcock, of the smallest details, and following in his footsteps, he wanted to provide a complete vision of a very delicate theme, offering many significant clues in the film's images, which may surely elude on a first viewing but become essential on the second (this was the director's intent), for example, the visible cold breath every time the tormented souls arrive, or the dozens and dozens of "red" objects: the basement door knob, the sweaters, the church door, the party balloons, the blanket of his "hideout" tent, his wife's earrings at the restaurant, the red, that is, the soul of the dead, or the aura of the sweaty hand.
But the main skill is to make believe until the end, that he has escaped death, his presence is there, at the restaurant, in the room when there’s the mother and Cole (it seems like a three-way conversation instead...), in church, on the bus, etc., and yet, pay attention, he and "the living" never actually touch, they only ever brush against each other, but only at the end, incredulous he discovers the opposite, when in the room the wife drops the husband’s wedding ring, only then does he understand that he too is a trapped soul, he had to assert himself for undeserved guilt, before the final journey.
The cast: an unseen Bruce Willis, his eternal ambiguous smile, which this time perfectly slips into an impeccable role, fully immersing himself with seriousness in the character entrusted to him. Haley Joel Osmet (Oscar-nominated for Best Supporting Actor) sublime, the core of the film. Toni Colette (Oscar-nominated for Best Supporting Actress) gives a wonderful performance. Stunning photography that adds that touch of anguish, handled by Tak Fujimoto, soundtrack by James Newton Howard, is sensational.
The plot: Crowe, a great child psychologist and happily married, returning from an important party in his honor, finds a former patient who condemns him to death for not having been the savior of his psychiatric disorders, the scenes move to the future, Crowe torments himself for having failed in what he deeply believed, but he has a new very important task which is to save Cole, a new patient, from his earthly anxieties, visions of "apparently evil" dead who want to be heard at any cost causing him "apparent" bodily scratches, and all this having to hide it from his mother and especially from others. Over time, with the help of Crowe, Cole will have the courage to confide everything to his mother, always anxious about her son’s injuries and odd visibly noticeable behaviors, and she will herself believe him without fear, after piecing together many parts of a big puzzle, for example when she realizes that in all the pictures of the son taken with the father, the image of her husband is a simple very white star . Crowe and Cole will be mutual saviors of themselves, Crowe will be an eternally serene soul ready for the great passage, and Cole will forever live with a precious gift, "a mission of help".
A film of continuous revelations, the search for another chance of salvation, for the earthly person and the otherworldly one. We all live with our ghosts and our fears which we tend to always ignore instead of facing them, but living can also mean learning to coexist without traumatizing ourselves.
As always, there is the personal choice between skepticism, "I don’t want to hear it and I don’t want to talk about it" or instead.... "yes, I believe, it is something infinite".
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