The Watchers : Not Just A Review
(Before we begin, spoilers alert.)
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Voyeurism as one of the themes, as the very title of the movie suggests.
This movie has voyeuristic horror. Four humans have refuge inside a cabin (called”coop”) in the forest where every night they are watched by unknown creatures. This is in the midst of a dense forest west of Ireland which does not feature in any map, where mobile signals stop working and cars break down.
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Bird Metaphor
In the beginning of the movie, Mina has a bird inside a cage, that repeats after her “try not to die”, which acts as a foreshadowing metaphor. This is like the humans not trying to die inside the forest by staying inside the “coop”. This very bird when freed from the cage in the end acts as the pathfinder who leads the humans out of the forest. That humans on foot following a bird freely flying in the air that too fresh out of cage is perhaps not very realistic, but we are not here for realism. We shall return to another very important aspect of this “winged” aspect later in our discussion.
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Fairy Tale, not Horror per se!
This movie is categorized not as horror, but fantasy by the makers. ‘Fairy’ enough! We shall tend to agree because there are no ghosts but strange creatures who come from Irish folklores. But then this is a movie produced by M Night Shyamalan and directed by his daughter Ishana Shyamalan who, like a dutiful oriental kid does attend to the family business, instead of moving out of the house. This is a signature horror movie of Shyamalan where the uncanny is more important than having any ghosts around.
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Ending has a Twist: There is a Cross-Over
There is a twist in the end, and no, it is not like what we apprehended, that may be the humans can never leave the forest, and the world outside in which they escape might just be a trick played by the creatures of the forest. No, the truth is more interesting than that. The boundary between the forest and human civilization is what gets broken as a result of the escape. Do find out yourself what passes through the broken fence. Also, a human cabin inside the forest playing a tv reality show which captures the metaphorical meaning is not entirely realistic, but we do not complain.
- Fourth Wall Realism: Proscenium Stage and TV show in the Forest!
In this cabin in the woods, there is this fourth wall realism, literally! There is this ongoing reality show (not the one on tv, being played on dvd, but the one in flesh and blood), where the humans are really some entertainment the creatures watch, as if this is happening on a proscenium stage. However, the creatures do not watch just casually, but with a desire for imitation, we find out in the end. All art was imitation in ancient Greece, what they called mimesis. This is an interesting meta-theatrical device, in which the humans are not just a reality show every night for the creatures whom they watch from the other side of a glass. The humans provide the material for imitation, just like life imitates art, or that the viewers imitate a performance. This is a sinister thing and we realize it only in the end, that this is no simple voyeurism. They watch us to become us. It is a parody of our world where fans watch a movie to imitate their favorite actors. The creatures also applaud Mina from the other side, almost like a tv show.
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Insufficient Space Time given to Develop the Myth of Folklore
The myth-making in this movie should have been central to the plot, but to cover it up as a surprise twist, to increase the suspense and may be to intensify the horror of the unknown, the folklore element has not been given any sufficient time for being integrated into the overall plot development. The fairy tale element is hurriedly brought, as it comes only in the end, that too in such a way where a dead professor almost conducts a crash course of the humans through his video diary in the basement which the humans accidentally find.
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Living Together Separately: Prison of Otherness
In this movie, two different species which co-existed in the ancient world are today living together separately in such a way that only very few of the humans at all understand or care for what is going on inside that forest, and only one human, a professor, ventures to go there to get to know them willingly. When he disappears, or that others disappeared while making his observatory inside the forest, no humans bother, they just decide to keep his university cabin intact. On the other hand, barring one creature, no other ever wanted to venture out. We are given explanations though. The forest is a prison of sorts. Not just for the humans stranded there and taking refuge inside the cabin. But also, for the creatures!
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Pagan World
The woods, the trees, the forest and the folktales are sacred. Ireland’s mighty pagan past comes to life in this movie. Shyamalan is a person of Indian origin, and should know a thing or two about the sacred mysterious woods out there. The flock of birds announcing the end of the dying daylight in this movie, the wings of the creatures indicate the strange and ancient religions having winged iconography. The Sumerian winged goddess Inanna/Ishtar comes to mind. Celtic myths have equivalent figures too.
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Love and let live
There is a message of inter-species harmony in this movie that comes in the end. In spite of the monstrous otherness of the creatures, they might become like us, as they are changelings. Also, there were inter-marriages in the past which produced half-breeds, who are part human.
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Split
There is a potent symbolism of split humanity (can remind us of Shyamalan’s 2016 movie Split), where Mina forges a different identity (Caroline) in the beginning of the movie. The twin sisters Lucy and Mina represent another symbolic split. Also, a binary struggle between the us-species versus them-species is there, which causes the pure human and the pure creature to get split. The cabin in the dark forest has a glass, from the other side of which the creatures watch the humans, but for the humans this glass acts as a mirror. Mirrors split us between us and our image. Mirrors are important in some of the psychoanalytic theories, because they represent the imaginary. Those interested to find more, please google “Lacanian imaginary”. It is primarily our mirror images which let us imagine our world. Mina touches her own reflection and knocks on the glass which results in the creatures reciprocating. As the movie ends, the act of watching continues, done by a watcher, but now no longer in the forest, but in urban Ireland.
This is a movie from the house of M Night Shyamalan. It has his usual strengths and his usual weaknesses. Worth a watch. Actors are good. Script could have been better. I shall give this movie Four stars out of Five.
This movie has a duration of 1 Hour 43 Minutes. Directed by Ishana Shyamalan.
