A Lady in the Water (So That Critics May Live)

As always, spoilers ahead.

Last night, I saw Shyamalan’s Lady in the Water for the first time since its original release. I encountered a multitude of themes that I had probably missed in 2006. Some of those include: Mr. Heep’s struggle to overcome his tremendous feeling of guilt for the death of his family, and his ultimate success; the understanding that Mrs. Choi, coming from an undisclosed East Asian country, is not “inscrutable” and “impenetrable”, as most current films have it about East Asian people, but is instrumental in acquainting the other characters with the real story about Story; the visions of a little boy (Joey Dury) who can guide adult people to the truth, even when reading supernatural messages off cereal boxes; a man (Mr. Leeds) who can keep his bizarre, even slightly offending silence most of the time, but speaks with weight and power when the right moment arrives; a critic who has to die so that critics may live.

Even as I piece this list together, I realise that, in the film, Shyamalan works with types. He presents us with a network of people who all have their stories, who are all symbolising one thing or the other. This, however, might be just one of many possible interpretations. My main concern while watching rested with the unnerving, glued-to, idiotic, absurd, tacked-on, so on, so forth, etc. nature of the supernatural names Mr. Shyamalan comes up with. My question was this: Why did he use names which make the whole story seem so unbelievable, so artificial, so contrived? Was it really his arrogance, his personal conviction that even the bedtime stories he tells his children are film-worth material? Or was it something else entirely? Just think about it – the central words of this story are as follows: Story, narf, scrunt, Kii, the vessel, Guardian, Guild, Madam(e) Narf, the Great Eatlon, Healer, Interpreter, Tartutic. It makes my stomach churn even as I pronounce these words in my mind – they sound as bad as in a generic, copycat elves-dwarves-orcs-magic-swords fantasy book.

Why did he do it then? I discovered I could read Lady in the Water in several distinct ways.

Firs of all, I could accept what critics, especially US ones, generally said about the film. I could think that Shyamalan really is arrogant, self-centred, obsessed with his own fictions and their allegedly superior qualities. I could even start thinking that his earlier successes have all been flukes, that he is now drunk, wallowing in the glory he achieved before, and can no longer produce anything of value. That, however, is not a productive critical stance; it is actually counter-productive. Shyamalan obviously believes very much in what he does; he also manages to persuade a serious number of actors and other artists to invest passion and power in his ideas. That cannot be achieved by paying salaries alone. (At this point, I’d like to just briefly mention the wonderfully fluent special effects in Lady in the Water. Think of the scrunt, if not of anything else.) Talking about money, a few people would risk a 75-million-dollar budget on their own whimsical arrogance – and those who would would fail painfully. This is definitely not the case with Lady in the Water. Finally, presuming that Shyamalan is an arrogant man still says nothing about his work. Rudyard Kipling was casually racist here and there (see “The White Man’s Burden”) – does that mean all of his poetry, as well as his other writings, should be defenestrated?

Another, more productive stance would be to view Lady in the Water as an actual bedtime story, or a fable, with all the ensuing symbolism attached. That would explain many things. I’ll make a non-exhaustive list here. First, the doctor is the Healer, he understands that he cannot save anyone, but should not stop fighting for people’s lives because he is not guilty, cannot be guilty for the death inflicted by a criminal he could not prevent. Second, Joey is the Interpreter, he is the idea that innocence and youth can go a long way because they see without the preconceptions of the adults, because they watch the world with fresh eyes. Third, the guild is the power of the community, the people who stand together, work together, fight together, live together in weakness and strength. Fourth, Reggie turns into the Guardian because he possesses the simple beauty of knowing what’s bad for the living and what’s good for them – certainly, monsters who only want power and have no scruples, no problems with eating the fragile and the defenceless, are bad for the living. Last but not least, Story is named that way because she unlocks the personal stories of all the other characters, she sets their personal histories on new tracks when the old ones have run their courses, she brings a little bit of understanding in a world of confusion.

Still, I think that the film can be seen as a realistic story. (And the phrase “magical realism” does not do it justice because it suggests a very limited, too narrow and too specific explanation.) As with all fiction, the main group of questions here is what if. What if, in a typical run-of-the-mill block of flats as depicted in the film, a water nymph named Story appears? What if she has the power to “activate” the vessel she is supposed to meet? What if, after that happens, she turns out to be a special narf, one that would lead their people to peace, wisdom, prosperity? What if she needs protection? Then all the people around her would need to help, if her mission is to be accomplished and she is to be saved. Shyamalan displays a very deep belief in the goodness of humanity here – he shows that all these people really do come and help when they are needed, even if they are taken out of their own bathroom like Mr. Bubchik. The real Guild helps just like the false one does; the false Interpreter finds the real one; the false Healer understands who the real one is. Shyamalan understood that saying such rather optimistic things is not a good idea in today’s climate. People (non-art people and film critics and art experts and so on) tend to praise bleakness, pessimism, meaninglessness, random filth and illogical destruction. That is why Shyamalan put himself into acting the role of the revolutionary writer. He will have to die for what he has written because he has told the truth, but at least his words will lead to change one day. This is an excellent metafictional statement that most people seem to have simply missed. And the critic, Mr. Farber, proves to be that type of critic who thinks he knows absolutely everything about absolutely everything. He points Mr. Heep in the incorrect direction because he does not understand that in a story, as well as in the real world, both the true Interpreter and the false Interpreter before them play equally important roles. The world, just like fiction, is not a simple place where all stories have been told long ago and where everything works according to well-known patterns, models and schemes. The world changes; fiction changes too. That is why this type of critic has to die, at least in Shyamalan’s film – so that critics may live, and so that art can be carefully interpreted in myriads of ways, not prescribed and pre-programmed by we-know-it-all people full of self-conceit.

Q. W3ary