The film ‘The Village’ by M Night Shyamalan, looks at a series of images which form the basis for portraying and shaping the story. M Night uses subtle symbols throughout the film resulting in the audience making up their own mind about certain events that take place. Using colour as a main centre piece for the film is an effective way of communicating to the audience visually. The powerful imagery is another tool in which engages and speaks to the audience allowing them to interpret the film as they will. This essay will examine the way in which these images and symbols get the message across without the use of excessive dialogue. It will also look at what the images and symbols actually represent.
Colour is an important symbol throughout the film. The symbolic colours that are used are yellow and red. The auteur links two simple primary colours to represent the communities perceptions of good and evil. The elders create the illusion that the red colour attracts the monsters and the colour yellow is the safe colour which protects them from any danger. This gives the film a strong visual element. These two colours are bright as seen throughout the film and all other colours appear dull adding a greater emphasis to the colours red and yellow. This shows us that M Night does not rely on verbal conversation to bring about the symbols. The red flower is an indication of this. When we see the two girls sweeping and they see the flower they quickly bury the bad colour in the ground. This also happens when Noah, who doesn’t really understand the concept of colour, picks the red berries from the woods putting them in his pocket. Later on Noah then offers the berries and places them in Ivy’ hand, she does not understand at first, obviously due to the fact that she is blind, until Luscious warns her. [“Oh, berries! What a splendid present!” “Be cautious. You are holding the bad colour.” “This colour attracts those we don’t speak of, you must bury