Man has forgotten.......

......... how to listen; and so began the movie we watched last night. As previously posted we stayed in last night and after me choosing which movies to watch over the past couple of weeks I left the choice to my boyfriend. It's one of his favourite movies, he brought it with him and urged me to sit and watch it despite me being put off by the reviews I read regarding it upon its release.

We watched "Lady In The Water" by M. Night Shyamalan, I'm familiar with his movies and particularly enjoyed "Sixth Sense", "Signs" and "The Village" - the former makes me cry so much, if you want to see me cry put that movie on and it's guaranteed. But I lost interest with him after watching "Unbreakable" and never returned to the fold again.

So I sat down in trepidation last night and truth be told I would have never watched the movie except for the insistence of my boyfriend. It was a revelation - what a wonderful movie; it's pretty much a fairy tale in every aspect; from the story, to the script, to the way it's filmed. It maintains that innocence of movie making to simply tell a story; that's its sole purpose and it's done so delicately and honestly it achieves its goal wonderfully well. Without violence and only moderately scary moments, it's part character study through the ensemble cast, part fantasy but 100 % recommended. It's just so pure and refreshing to encounter something so different, that probably wasn't produced to entertain critical acclaim and success but was just produced because it could be.

We learned from the special features after the movie that the story started its life as a bedtime story that M. Night Shyamalan told to his children. He simply made the story up to entertain his children and over time he added to to it and fleshed it out and it was eventually published as a children's book. The movie version maintains that feeling - it's far from a childish tale and I'm sure will appeal to a vast audience. It kept me quiet and utterly transfixed for its entirety I was intertwined within the tale - it is a beautiful and unique film; and one which I think is best viewed in the company of someone you hold close to your heart. Forget films filled with blood, gore, horror, violence and never ending action sequences; revisit what movie making was initially made to achieve - to simply tell a story.

I should have known better than to doubt my boyfriends taste and judgement; perhaps I myself was forgetting how to listen. Last night proved that it's never too late to learn how to listen again.........