SEE AND SWING AWAY

This sequence brings us the meeting of the two parallel narratives that run across
the movie. For the first time, the movie provides tangible evidence of the two
horrors experienced the colleens death and the alien landing.
The sequence also provides a lot of insight about the inner world of our characters.
Hence, the purpose of this analysis becomes to understand the layers of existence
and think about how and why certain forms of depiction have been used and what
meaning is made out. The camera movements and editing pave way into grahams
inner world. Like the fish eye shot hinting to a revelatory moment found in the
flashback or the extreme close-ups provide us an insight into what graham maybe
thinking and estimating.
But Shyamalans real creativity and psychoanalytical core comes to light by the
enchanting ways he finds to show us the aliens inner world. Be it the somatic
element of expression or the television reflection, each shot provides her with a
subjectivity and poses questions which help construct her character. Thus, if the
camera does not hint us about the reflected faces and the camouflage, then one
cannot break out of the common myths of horror.
The camera directs us towards the supposed narrative and at the same time
successfully breaks the uncertainty that pertains around this non humanoid. In fact
it brings out new facets of both the species. One can establish from this sequence
that fear of the unknown is deep seated in both their minds. This fear is so
paralyzing that one would prefer not to walk up to the source and initiate verbal
communication in order to obtain more information. The preferred way is to stand
afar and make deduction of only those aspects that have been made visible. This
proves to be as more dangerous as our sense of what has been signified may
drastically differ.
Every mind has its own logic which is coloured in the shades of the truth that rules
the mind. An event, person or phenomena may have been so impactful that it
comes to dominate a mind and become its major inhabitant. Hence, context and
circumstances create a disparity in experience and the process of making and
depicting meaning. Unfortunately, one refuses see beyond their realms of being and
seeks answers within the existing chaos. It is as per this logic that one may see
graham turning to his wifes death for answers and surprisingly coming out with
solutions that avert his crisis. Also, the stories that are spun around the true nature
of the alien beings are such that they leave no space for benefit of doubt. Thus, fear
of losing his son in addition to the rumors lead to the fateful happening in this
sequence. But the way, in which the aliens inner world has been shown, such as
the mention of the pipe which is so small as to be a defensive tool rather than

offensive and the reflected faces which are being assumed as somatic symptoms,
we are hinted otherwise.

It is essential to understand and see one and others fears and desires to get to
someone elses sense of logic. But the fear of that which seems different hampers
true investigation because prospect of proximity seem out of bounds. This is the
state of our narrative. Shyamlan gives us option to think beyond his narrative by
showing us certain visuals like that in the scene of the fingers and shit print but in
the next scene of the flashback he also establishes that only the fingers hold a
position of significance. Also, as we are assuming the faces on the body to be
somatic symptoms then we should ask why the very next scene is about the aliens
assumed ferociousness. Hence, it seems like shyamlan gives us the foods for
thought and then guides towards what to eat. But he makes sure that we see what
graham is missing and hence think about what happens when one does not show
and the other does not see.
At this point the analysis brings out a very different meaning of colleens epiphany
SEE and SWING AWAY. What if colleen was signaling graham about a hidden reality
of the alien and in turn trying to avoid any chaos that came to happen because of
the bloodshed (of the alien) and pain that morgan had to go through?
This in turn paints a new picture of horror that was once explored by Mary Shelly
horror does not only live in the grandiosity of the fantastical. And by giving us
certain shots where one may suspect the camera to be someones eyes with a brain
behind it, shyamlan has provided an insight on the horror and humanity of our
green non-human. By depicting the reflected faces, shirt print, small poison gas
pipe, the television reflection and the tall bodies (morgans logic was that they have
highly developed cognitive function and hence did not need big bodies so if our
alien is tall maybe she is more than cognition and is a feeling being too!), shyamlan
gives us an option to see at each step that graham could have gone the other way
and this could have ended very differently. Maybe, if graham could have see and
make sense of these somatic symptoms, then both he and Merrill could have swung
away the crisis without any body getting hurt. After all, all what we can show
cinematically are the symptoms hoping it will convey the diagnosis and the problem
around the diagnosis.

Sheena Ankshie