[CRITICAL] SPLIT

24 figures for an actor. This is the promise of SPLIT, the new feature film of M. Night Shyamalan , who hopes to return to the first plan. And with the way, please !

Miraculously resurrected with the squeaky The Visit, M. Night Shyamalan must today confirm a renewal that we looked forward to after crossing the desert art particularly troublesome. His last project, in 2015, has managed to combine both commercial and critical success, enough to bring him back to the front of the stage and to initiate a new phase in his career. Once touted as the prodigy of Hollywood (some have dared to unsheathe the label “new Spielberg”, that is to say, the magnitude of the expectations placed in him the past), M. Night Shyamalan must now rebuild everything to prove that we can give him our trust as an audience. The budgets of the pharaohs of After Earth or the Last airbender are far behind. The film director of indian origin returns to a form of cinema more modest, less driven by the pressure of the economic returns and therefore, by extension, to a more movie free.From the opening scene of the kidnapping, we find the Shyamalan we love : perfect voltage coupled with an ingenious use of the-field and off-field. The most beautiful hours of cinema will recall to our memory (The Village and its oppressive pursuit race final). The result is in the same vein. No need for fussing for hours, in terms of editing, mise en scene, pace, and writing, the film is a highly effective doing the picnic at the 3/4 of the series B out each year. There are a good handful of great ideas framework, which prove that the know-how that never went away (play on the mirrors, corners, inventive, suspenseful formidable), to the extent that the case leaves enough room to deploy it. If one accepts the film as an entertainment, SPLIT fills damn well his contract. No wonder, the film Shyamalan has in his dna the right ingredients to stimulate the viewer. The plot twists and other hidden elements are the major tools with which the filmmaker has fun ever since, producing an effect exhilarating for those who suffer and, inevitably, the one that is running. Watch one of his films is to be willing to accept the manipulation, being cheated and abused.

“SPLIT sign the return, the bulging torso, a Shyamalan incisive and inventive. “

Visibly aware of it for what it is deemed to be, M. Night Shyamalan has decided to play with our nerves by confronting the face of our expectations, but also by modulating the use of the twist, up until then, the spice of each one of his films to be successful. In this sense, the emergence of the director in a short scene in the middle of the scenario is of paramount importance : it interprets a man who manipulates images of surveillance on a computer. By assigning an appearance with this task the process exceeds the banal cameo egocentric, it comes to expose to the eyes of all that he is the master of images, ordering information. Pure film director, but also pure film actors, SPLIT capitalizes on the performance of its two headliners. James McAvoy delivers a performance belie that we will remember at the time to take stock of his career, oscillating between the generator of concern, laughter and a hint of emotion. In front of him, Anya Taylor-Joy (the revelation of The Witch) is of an intensity that is crazy, holding in the depths of his eyes a magnetic attraction happant anyone who crosses.Now, pay attention to what will follow, the spoilers are out !

In the same way as it had proceeded with THE VISIT, M. Night Shyamalan sketch of the tracks are fantastic and then the tempers through rational explanations – mental illness. The whole story on the Beast instilled in us the expectations of the order of the pure supernatural, and in small clever, Shyamalan waters down the revelation related to this 24th personality – who has not fantasized to see the bad guy turn to good in creature hairy ? Not necessarily to be a pleasure to disappoint us. On the contrary, the great revelation of the project was not on this floor. The last reel brings a whole new twist that allows the movie to take an extra fullness. It was previously SPLIT excellent, thanks to its last minutes it becomes brilliant. Still and always, nothing is free and the whole reflects a global vision particularly refined since the film joined directly , Break-resistant, multiple ways. In the manner of what has made Marvel with its expanded universe, Shyamalan weaves connections with his movie super-hero initial mulling over questions common (evidence that the approach was not opportunistic), up to the climax to the orgasmic : the appearance of Bruce Willis rendossant his role of David Dunn. The move is heartening, because nothing in term of marketing has only been in this sense, maintaining the secrecy intact.

Sold as a film about schizophrenia, the SPLIT is something else. New variation on the theme of super-heroes, the film defuses its basic premise (we don’t see the half of the 24 personalities) to continue to explore a subject dear to Shyamalan : the difference and self-acceptance. The final appearance of Kevin in dialogue with his other personality is a very nice conclusion, all of him, opening masterfully the way to a role of bad-guy in Unbreakable 2. The Beast takes over the whole world, it “takes the light” and the man agrees, finally, to be fully in someone, with the purpose of revenge against a world that dared to mock him. Wouldn’t it be there, vaguely hidden, a slightly more aggressive attack against the criticism that it was clumsily done with the Girl in The Water ? Ladies and gentlemen, we have done well to doubt him. The beast M. Night Shyamalan is back, sharp claws. Incisive and spirited, SPLIT demonstrates the skill of a stage director income the bulging torso, decided to reclaim a place in the hearts of movie-goers.

Maxime Bedini

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