Text: The Village
Task: From Watching to Interpreting and Writing

OBJECTIVES
Cultural: Dialogue between Cultures
Intertextual: From Film to Metaphors
Linguistic: Listening - reading- writing

TITLE

Just considering the title of the film we watched, we may expect it to be about a story set in a far distant place, where people live in isolation, but at  the  same time in contact with nature. As a matter of fact, if I close my eyes and think about the title, an image of mountains, trees, wild animals and something like that generates in my mind.

STORY LINE

I am now going to consider storyline. As I have thought, the story is set in a secluded place, where only the old know where they are. At first sight, the village looks late nineteenth century and the human environment seems to have reached a perfect balance.

The people live in harmony, immersed in an idyllic setting. At the same time the community of the village is aware of the strange terrible creatures living in the woods nearby. It seems they are attracted by the red colour and keep distances from the yellow colour.

The people of the village call them “all them we don’t speak of”, because they are scared of them. They have no courage to enter the woods. But one day, when a man goes into the woods, the oath between the village and the creatures is broken.

I think that the film director wanted to show his point about the church, which is represented by the village. As a matter of fact it was a way to hold violence and sins far away. The old want children and young people to avoid falling into something wrong and dangerous. Therefore they generated the existence and taboo of  some horror situations out of the village, the unmentionable red creatures of the woods, that remind the colour of blood and devil.

Even sound in the film contribuites to render the opposition good and evil. As a matter of fact in fearful scenes the music chosen by the director (like for example the alternation of low and loud notes), to excite the audience's sensitivity.

PERSONAL CONSIDERATIONS

I think that in The Village two themes are developed: religion, conveyed (as I have already said) by the unmentionable red creatures that represent evil, and love, represented by Ivy who,  even blind, ventures through the woods to find medicines to save Lucius, her love. In my opinion the message of the film is that we must believe in right values, but we must also succeed in self reasoning to use our mind to reach critical thinking.