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Essay on The Others
Since the summer of 1999, every movie that dares to mention ghosts and the supernatural runs the risk of comparison with The Sixth Sense. Most are going to fail the test, which is what makes The Others so interesting. This chiller from Spanish director Alejandro Amenabar (2001) does a surprisingly good job of telling the story of a British woman who, at the end of World War II, begins to suspect she's living in a haunted house.
Creepy and involving, The Others turns out the best kind of horror, the kind that allows an audience to react at its own pace. Amenabar (2001) is not out to drown us in plasma or blow us away with special effects. He is trying to build suspense the old-fashioned way - by stimulating our imaginations. Clues, suggestion and nuance replace the usual hammering manipulations.
Grace is an aristocratic young wife and mother living in the secluded, fog-shrouded Isle of Jersey in the waning days of World War II with her young son and daughter.
As the story unfolds, three working-class locals headed by the maternal Mrs. Mills appear at Grace's manor door and offer to replace her servants, who have mysteriously fled during the night. Beyond being lonely, anxious and distraught over the fate of her long-absent, probably deceased, soldier-husband, Grace has another burden.
Her children, the defiant Anne and timid, sensitive Nicholas, are deadly allergic to sunlight.
They must be kept hidden away from the light or they will die. Perhaps a byproduct of her condition, Anne perversely insists that "other" people also inhabit the house, including a little boy. In spite of all her hardship and a recently ended Nazi occupation, Grace keeps up appearances, educates her children and raises them to be devout and well-disciplined. Table talk in one scene focuses on....
