Given my interest in faith and film (looking for God's fingerprints, as I like to say), I suscribe to the feed from Metaphilm. Tonight's post caught my eye:
Deconstructing Fear
Shyamalan's films ask us questions about the ways we cope with our fears in hopes of affecting our unspoken ideologies.
If you take the time to read the whole post what you'll find is a fantastic essay on deconstruction of fear and ideology, as illustrated through the works of M. Night Shyamalan.
What Shyamalan does in his films is to push the boundaries that we fear crossing. He doesn’t just want to scare us. He wants to transform the way we live and act in light of our fear. He challenges us to ask what we are really afraid of, to look at the deeper questions raised by the limitations of human existence. Is it the case that the rules and ideas we assume every day are in fact true to reality? Are they true to what really exists beyond what we can perceive, touch, and know? What is on the other side of death? Is it to be feared? What would it mean to see dead people? Do ghosts have to be scary?
What about living up to a heroic life of risk and adventure? Why do we fear who we really are? Is living a life that is truly alive—a life that risks being who we really are—so bad in the end? Do we keep the secure "safe" job and continue walking in numbness?
Wow, this resonates for me in so many areas, not the least of which is faith. It's an excellent read.
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