Rented the latest Shyamalan movie and viewed it for the first time last weekend. Reviews were mixed but we enjoyed it - some moody cinematography, interesting performances (I like Adrian Brody's), and a couple of "ZAP!" moments... some parts didn't quite ring true, but what I really liked about the film was something that I've harped on here in the past, namely it's theme of the use of fear to manipulate people.

In crafting a film about the ways fear can manipulate -- are there really creatures of mass destruction in the woods? -- Shyamalan gives the film a metaphorical weight that goes deeper than goose bumps. He may find himself linked with Michael Moore as a political provocateur. "Do your best not to scream your loudest," Edward tells Ivy when he opens a woodshed and uncovers long-buried secrets.

Rolling Stone

PETER TRAVERS (Posted Jul 28, 2004)

This manipulation may be done with intentions benign or malevolent, noble or scurrilous, but it is done all the time, at all levels of society, by parents and teachers and churches and governments.

When looked at by the numbers, terrorism is really a minor threat. Much greater threats exist - global warming, overpopulation, ecological disasters, poverty and disease, ignorance, economic meltdowns - but the image of a dark-skinned maniac with a cloth on his head and a small nuclear weapon in his suitcase is much easier to grasp - and to sell - to a public that is already uneasy at best, terrified at worst, about things that they don't quite understand.

Things like abortion and gay marriage and even creationism are other icons of the manipulative that, like terrorism, have real significance but are elevated far beyond their real relative importance for use as tools to influence people - often specifically voters. They are simple to portray, the basics are easy to understand, so they make ideal fodder for the cannons of propaganda.

The world of 2005, with it's six billion humans, vast and rapidly developing economies, the internet and cable tv, incredible technologies that put rovers on distant planets, is, I think, overwhelming to many people, even if they don't think a lot about all these things in their complex world. An undercurrent of unease is always there, and it's natural to fear that which one does not understand. This undercurrent is a fertile zone and fear of more tangible and immediately accessible things can be planted and nurtured there by those who have the desire and motivation to do so.

One of my favourite quotes is from "The Empire Strike Back" when Yoda says, "Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate - and hate leads to the dark side."

Dealing with the dark side first is like trying to solve a problem of obesity with liposuction - it's dangerous, painful, potentially fatal, and expensive. Dealing with the hate is more like stomach stapling - anger like a strict diet - but the only way to really solve the problem for good is to work on the fear, the motivations and compulsions to overeat in the first place.

I think that the only way our world - our human, civlized world that is - will survive is through the elimination or at least reduction of fear among all people, and that will take (first) the elimination of poverty and hunger, and (second) rational education. Our precious resources would much better be spent to these ends than to build more and better war machines.

[/soapbox]