THE OTHERS
Spain/US, 2001, 101 minutes, Colour.
Nicole Kidman, Fionnulla Flanagan, Eric Sykes, Elaine Cassidy, Christopher Eccleston, Renee Asherson.
Directed by Alejandro Almenebar.
Ghost stories on screen in recent years have tended to be special effects thrillers or special effects spoofs. The Haunting with Liam Neeson is an example of the former. The House on Haunted Hill with Geoffrey Rush is an example of the latter. Of course, once the parodies of horror films were made, combinations of stupidity and crassness were the order of the day. Scary Movie 2 took as its framework the plot of The House on Haunted Hill and gave it all the bad taste that the film-makers could muster.
Fortunately, The Others is the exact opposite of this. And it is a very welcome ghost story. Film buffs will be thinking of Henry James and The Turn of the Screw and its film version, The Innocents, with Deborah Kerr. It was a psychological ghost story where audiences had to ask what was really happening and how much was in the mind of the repressed governess.
Perhaps the film it relates to most in recent years is the surprisingly effective The Sixth Sense. It had a brilliant twist at the end which made audiences re-assess how they had been looking at the events and characters in the film. Audiences for The Others will be expecting some twists in the plot. While, I tried to anticipate the solution, I was only half right - and the half wrong made all the difference! We have to wait until the very end where the screenplay gives us the solution and proves that it did not cheat. I happened to be expecting one thing and the film delivers another.
It is an eerie film rather than a scary one. However, there is one sudden edit cut which is unexpected and lifted quite a few of the audience off their seats. It is the eeriness which remains with you.
So does the performance of Nicole Kidman. It is a marked contrast with her exuberance in Moulin Rouge. Here she is the rather proper (even prim) mother of two young children living in a mansion on the island of Jersey at the end of World War II. She is over-protective because of their disease which prevents them being in light. She teaches them, gives them religious instruction, acts with rather rigid discipline. Kidman's acting is nuanced and controlled, a fine performance.
Sometimes one of the difficulties of ghost stories is the credibility of the children. Haley Joel Osment was completely believable in The Sixth Sense. Here Alakina Mann and James Bentley do a very good job, ordinary children in extraordinary situations. Also memorable is Fionulla Flanagan as the new housekeeper. She is able to suggest menace while persuading us that she is quite normal.
The screenplay also introduces religious language, especially about purgatory and limbo. Popular films like this open up to our imagination the formulations of doctrines that we have received, especially about life after death. They are images and symbols.
It is difficult to say too much more without giving away the plot, so it might be best to add simply that this is a finely-crafted film, beautifully composed and shot, an atmospheric score - a film that you could take anyone who likes ghost films to see.
Direction and screenplay and score are by Alejandro Almenebar who made Open my Eyes (the American version of which was Vanilla Sky with Tom Cruise) and The Sea Inside.
1.Impact of the film? Awards and acclaim? The blend of melodrama, mystery? The period of World War Two? The changes of moods? The perspective of the Spanish writer-director? The international cast?
2.The success of the film as a ghost story, the various twists, the ending? The title – and who were the others?
3.The house itself as a character? The interiors, the fifty rooms, the locked doors, the use for the family and servants? The exteriors, the garden, the iron gate? The fog and the dark? The eerie atmosphere? The musical score?
4.The prologue and Grace’s comments about antiquity, history and pre-Creation? Her waking and screaming?
5.The mysterious arrival of the servants, the later discovery that the post had not been taken? The three as a group, the explanations? The tour of the house? Grace explaining the other servants had disappeared, giving no notice, the master away at the war? No electricity, having got used to it with the German occupation of Jersey? The house continually dark, the curtains drawn? Grace’s comments about the children hiding, her own migraine? The piano not to be played?
6.Grace as a character, prim and proper, her stances, her bearing? A loving mother, her explanations, guiding the servants over the house, the rules, hearing the sobs? Her hysterical moments?
7.The introduction to the children, Anne and Nicholas, the questions, the children’s physical condition, allergy to the light?
8.Mrs Mills, Bertha, meeting the children, having the best years working in that house, therefore the group coming? Her memories about the tuberculosis? Her beliefs in the Beyond?
9.Lydia, mute, her work, her becoming mute, her being scolded by Grace?
10.Mr Tuttle, the gardener, his work in the garden? The gradual talking of the three together, their seeming sinister, their plans, waiting for the proper time, covering the gravestones?
11.The detail of life in the house, the breakfast, everything normal? The differences during the day?
12.The absent father, hoping that he would come back, the children arguing about their mother’s madness?
13.The film getting darker, the rooms, light being unbearable? Grace not liking fantasies, forbidding her children to fantasise, especially about ghosts? Their lessons, her strictness, not letting them play, the various punishments, separating the children, keeping Grace on the staircase for three days? The joke about seeing a ghost, Anne saying that ghosts had sheets over their heads, simply say hello? Squeeze on the rosary and say the Our Father and the fear would go away? The lesson about the nature of family, not arguing?
14.Victor, the audience not seeing him, Anne seeing him, the sobs? The drawing with his parents? Their viewing the house? The children discussing Victor as a ghost, the opening of the curtains, Anne taunting Grace, the fears and the screams? Anne having to read aloud about the expulsion of Adam and Eve from Eden?
15.The religious overtones, the discussions about Limbo, non-baptised? Disobedient children going there? The mother and her threats? The discussion about visiting the priest and his not having come? Talking about being isolated, Grace feeling cut off from the rest of the world? The quotes of Abraham, Grace as hard and tender, especially with Anne, preparing her for her first communion, the bridal dress, Anne treating it as a ghost dress, with the puppets, and Grace throttling her daughter?
16.The search of the house, the spare rooms, fears, removing the covers from the statues, the mirrors? Anne and the drawing of the family, discussions about witches? The old photo, the dust – the dead people, ghosts wanting to live on through the photo? The Book of the Dead, souls living on in portraits? The piano playing, no-one playing it, the locks turning?
17.The comment that the world of the dead gets mixed up with the world of the living? Grace and her going to seek the priest, lost in the fog, finding the master? The impact of his return?
18.Charles, his story, volunteering, the question about where people were when they were dead? Grace explaining to the children what their father did, on the side of the goodies versus the baddies?
19.The memories of the day, what actually happened, the servants going, Grace and the children?
20.Charles and his questioning Grace about what happened, his leaving to go to the Front, her memories of the occupation, the fact that people surrendered? The curtains gone, Mrs Mills wanting the light in? Her fight with the servants, turning them out, the children running away?
21.The discovery of the photo of the three, 1891? The seeing of the other people, the intruders? The holding of the séance, Anne and her trying to tell the medium, whispering in her ear? Nicholas and his being present? Grace coming in, gathering up the papers, trying to burn them? Seeing the séance from the point of view of the family? Seeing the séance from the point of view of the visiting family, the expert, the medium?
22.The reconciliation, Grace’s explanation of what really happened? Her madness? The family deciding not to stay in the house, Victor looking up at the ghosts? The light, the group having to live in the house, prepared for other intruders, but living together?
