Featured Film Review
'Sixth Sense' 1999 Touchstone Pictures, starring Haley Joel Osment, Bruce Willis, Toni Colette and Olivia Williams. Length: 107 minutes
Haley Joel Osment is a stunning actor. He plays Cole, a young boy who sees ghosts; but in many ways, that is not what the film is about. It's about disbelief where there should be belief, and the effect that that has on the disbelieved and on those who can't believe. It's not about religion, but there is an element of faith insofar as the question is - can you trust that a reality exists when you do not have the evidence of your own experience? Cole is left without the support of peers and authorities, though his mother tries hard to get to the root of his problems. Those who know about the ghosts label him a freak; so he's learned to tell no-one, including his mother. Enter Malcolm, a brilliant child psychologist, whose world view was shattered by the one he got wrong and who came back as an adult to get revenge. Cole and Malcolm are pretty much helping each other, though the latter doesn't realize it.
When I first saw this film, at the pictures in Yorkshire, and I cried for about 10 minutes afterwards. I don't think I said much for a while after that, until there were only two of us left. The remaining friend filled a huge teapot and set it down before us, grabbed the ashtray and we talked. It was all about the tragedy then; breathing out a huge sigh of relief on behalf of every Cole out there in the world. This was the film which I wish had been out when I was his age, just so I could show everyone and say, 'Look! It's like this!' It's not. The ghosts are wrong, in my experience, but presumably it would be difficult to film and direct them, so they had to make do with real actors. But the whole psychology of the narrative is spot on.
Six years later, this is still my favourite film, the one I cite when those 'getting to know you' e-mails come around. I own the DVD and periodically watch it, even now finding a new layer of meaning in a very, very clever script. It is easy to cry seeing a child struggle to cope in an impossible situation and to egg on the character of Malcolm, as does what his wife, Anna, had observed as, 'helping children cope with things which would have adults pissing all over themselves.' One scene in particular, involving Cole being locked in a cupboard, has never ceased to have me blarting no matter how many times I've watched it. Other layers include watching it all from the point of view of the mother, knowing only that her boy is hurt, terrified and with-holding the information needful for her to protect and help him; seeing it from the view of the ghosts, lost in their tunnel vision of a world; or from Cole's peers, scared of seeming freakish by association, but well aware of his abilities.
This time, I watched it noting only Cole's utter courage. His silence protects his mother and, heart-breakingly, he seeks to ensure his classrooms aren't frightened by the things he sees by that same silence. Pretending that nothing is happening, because he doesn't think that they can handle the truth. Finally, his courage in facing his Sight not as a curse alone, but as a responsibility. For as long as children such as he grow up in a world where there is disbelief and the censure of classmates, then these will always have the choice between insanity/drink and drugs/breakdown/suicide on the one hand or else rising to the task in hand and becoming the most courageous, compassionate and unsung hero(in)es of their time. You can no more say to them that the colour blue doesn't exist than there are no such things as ghosts. The latter statement, to the psychic child, says only that you are in this alone always and forever, now which route will you take to deal with that? This film explores both of those routes to their inevitable outcomes.
I can't recommend it enough.
Reviewer: Mab
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