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Signs
Director: M. Night Shyamalan (2002)
Distributor: Buena
Vista International (UK).
Certificate: 12
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Signs opens with the discovery of an elaborate set of crop circles on the Pennsylvanian farm of Graham Hess (Mel Gibson). Hess is a Christian minister who has lost his faith following the death of his wife in a road accident six months earlier. He lives on the farm with his brother Merrill (Joaquin Phoenix) and his children Morgan (Rory Culkin) and Bo (Abigail Breslin). Morgan suffers from severe asthma.
At first, Hess regards the crop circles as the work of some local pranksters but it soon becomes apparent that the phenomenon is more sinister. TV reports from across the world show similar signs, followed by the appearance of UFOs above cities across the globe. Very soon the Hess farm is itself besieged by aliens, and the family are forced to barricade themselves in their cellar. Without his medication, Morgan almost dies from an asthma attack.
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The next morning, emerging from their hiding place fearful of what they might find, the Hess family discovers that the aliens have been defeated and have left the earth. But just when it seems that all is well, an alien who has been left behind in the house attacks Morgan, exhaling deadly gas on him. Morgan’s asthmatic condition prevents the gas from getting into his lungs. |
As Graham Hess agonises over how to release his son from the alien’s clutches, words of his dying wife come back to and provide him with the clues from which he finds the weapons to defeat the alien. Through these events, Hess realises the hand of God at work in his life and his faith is restored.
Signs is not a bad film overall. It is tense and nervy in places, with some good comic moments as well. But if you are expecting the same level of twist at the end of the film, as was the case in the director’s earlier The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable, you will be disappointed. The twist, such as it is, is also built around a very dodgy understanding of the way God works in the world (see below), suggesting that tragedies such as the asthma of a child and a fatal motor accident are all sent for a purpose.
THROUGH THE LENS OF CHRISTIAN FAITH
One of the constant themes running through the films of M. Night Shyamalan (Sixth Sense, Unbreakable) is the suggestion that there is more to life than meets the eye. His latest offering continues the pattern. This time, the very title of the film invites two possible interpretations.
On the one hand, there is the ‘in-your-face’ linking of crop circles with aliens. Nothing new there ~ flying saucer anoraks have been saying that for years, so it is not too surprising that Hollywood is now doing the business on it. Even the aliens reflected the well-worn stereotype embedded in the popular psyche of skinny, grey-skinned, bug-eyed beings.
On the other hand, Signs operates behind the aliens story in suggesting that many of the random events in life in fact point to a sense of order and purpose in the universe. Thus Graham Hess, the minister who loss of faith was due to the untimely death of his wife, eventually regains it after recognising how things that seemed pointless and cruel at the time fit together. Even losing his wife, it seems, was somehow meant to be.
However, such a portrayal of God as a Being who causes things to happen to people in order to provide clues to His existence is somewhat disturbing. The suggestion that God is some sort of divine puppet-master who manipulates the strings of people’s day-to-day existence is a perverse distortion of God’s nature. Sadly it is the image that many people hold, and it is little wonder that many people reject such a God, not least when disaster strikes.
The reality of the God who is revealed in and through the person of Jesus Christ is very different from the caricature presented in Signs. In Jesus we see God’s nature for what it is. The Christian God is not a remote deity who plays games with human beings, causing bad things to happen in order to teach them things. Rather, He is a God who entered completely into our human condition and who stands with us today in the mysterious depths of our own suffering.
It was good to see M. Night Shyamalan getting to grips with questions of purpose and meaning in Signs ~ but what a shame that his interpretation of the signs so badly misrepresented an authentic Christian understanding of God.
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