MINDLESS MUSINGS

***Here’s Your One***

The rumour was that this movie had one of the greatest twists ever! Big claim. Unfortunately, I will never know. Despite being a card-carrying film fanatic, I have not ever been very good at picking ‘whodunit’ and any other plot twists. I was not even looking for the real Keyser Soze in The Usual Suspects (1995) and still reckon my mate Mick was full of shit when he told us all that he knew it all along. I was just enjoying the film, although I don’t remember any hype about that particular surprise when the movie was released. Even though it would become just as famous as the one in the M. Night Shyamalan film I am lamenting here.

The Sixth Sense (1999) was marketed on its unpredictable reveal. It was also reviewed as a great thriller, but the shock turn was what people were talking about. I was obviously very excited about this. However, I was spending a substantial amount of my free time in the pub at this age and not going to the cinema as often. Watching movies on video was a nice hangover activity. It was also a fun beer drinking activity, although it could be difficult holding that experience in long term memory.

Either way, I did not see The Sixth Sense at the cinema and had not been informed of the twist yet. There was usually a lag of something like 6 months before a movie was released on video after its cinema run, so I was keen to catch this one when it first arrived at the stores.

I was also a raging pisshead. At this point in my drinking career, it was not unusual to get wasted on a Friday after work, go home to crash, and be back up the pub not long after lunch on Saturday (my gut churns at the memory).

The set-up of this story makes me think there was some kind of event up the pub that day, though I have no clue what it was. However, for some reason I rang Wayne (my mate who lived down the street) before heading up. He told me he would be up a little later because he was watching…you guessed it!

So, I went up and got myself a beer. As soon as I sat down at the table, Jonno asked me if Wayne would be joining our session. I informed him that Wayne would be up soon and that he was currently watching The Sixth Sense on VHS. Without warning, Jonno’s first response was “when did you figure out he was dead?” …

You utter bastard!!!

Do you realise what you have done???

“I haven’t seen it yet” was my dumbfounded reply.

Jonno went for a quick recovery and said “I didn’t say WHO was dead”

You also didn’t say ‘what’ was dead my friend; and that is my cat still in the bag experience of this movie everyone has been raving about. Now I am not saying I would have figured it out, but I missed out on one of the joys of great cinema! That moment! That reveal you didn’t see coming! The ‘Keyser Soze was Verbal Kint all along!!!” moment. It is one of the reasons I fell in love with movies. It has been done clunkily many times, but when it lands, it is awesome! And it can only succeed one way: a great story. Draw us into the plot and the characters, fascinate us. If we’re not loving the story, the misdirection may slip.

Watching The Sixth Sense knowing Bruce Willis is a ghost was like watching half a movie. It was so obvious and yet I could still see the brilliance behind the cinematic deception. It’s always fun to revisit a film that really put one over on you and watch how the ruse was orchestrated. Not so much when you’re sleuthing skills never got tested the first time though.

For a cinema buff it’s the equivalent of finding out the score of a big game you recorded before you get the chance to watch it. There is a reason they call them ‘spoilers’. Of course, a great film must be more than just a twist. Especially if you want people to re-watch. Be that as it may, the tough fact is an awesome twist can only be experienced once (if your lucky) and it’s enjoyable either way: you are either amazed or feeling proud of your powers of perception.

One final thought going back to The Usual Suspects. It presents a fascinating storytelling conundrum once the thrill of the reveal subsides. You realise you just watched a movie about a chain of events that never really happened. “Der! That’s what fiction is dumbass” I hear you say. True but this time the characters and situations you experience where the bullshit stories of one of those fictional characters…

I’ll go into that more at a later date.