The daughter of the director of The Sixth Sense makes her feature debut with an elegant and disturbing (in the broadest sense of the word) potpourri of her father’s many obsessions.
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According to Article 155 of the Civil Code, children must obey their parents as long as they remain under their authority. This is in addition to always respecting them. If the latter seems a bit far-fetched to you, consider the following: offspring must “contribute fairly, according to their means, to the expenses of the family while they live with it”. Definitely, there are laws that have not touched reality. It is unclear whether Ishana, whose surname is Shyamalan, is aware of current Spanish law on the matter. What no one can deny her, judging by her directorial debut, is her undying admiration for her father. One might say that respect goes as far as enthusiasm. Even devotion. Or perhaps, why not, even cannibalism. Shyamalan, in fact, eats Shyamalan. And this, in the unsettling absurdity of both the gesture and the bite, is extraordinarily Shyamalan. I don’t know if we’ve made our point.
‘The Watchmen’ is not just a film that replicates in its own way many of the obsessions that have followed the director of ‘The Sixth Sense’ throughout his very fruitful filmography, always dedicated to making the shadows from the other side (from myth, dream, legend, space, the occult, death…) destabilise the clear light of reality. In fact, and leaving aside his more risky and failed excesses (“Airbender” or “After Earth”), if the ever-controversial filmmaker from India or Pennsylvania excites by anything, it is by his ability to make the extraordinary, or just the absurd, seem everyday. For that and for his continuous and permanent reflection on the value, meaning and reality even of fiction, of the universe of fable.
