M. Night Shyamalan in Rome to present his latest film Knock at the Door, from February 2 at the cinema with Universal Pictures, adaptation of the 2018 novel The house at the end of the world by Paul Tremblay.
One cannot fail to get excited in a press meeting with M. Night Shyamalan, the director who rewrote the rules of horror and thriller to make something personal, intimate, familiar. The conversation with the director of Indian origin naturalized in the United States started right from the family. A path that has evolved from the first films of him-from Praying with Anger (1992) e With open eyes (Wide Awake) (1998) e il suo The sixth sense (1999) to the most recent Old (2021). In short, a family man: “I often think that if I were single I would only make films about a boy who goes somewhere and finds himself in some misadventure… (laughs) I think there is a kind of sanctity in the family – be it a home, or a nucleus, children , the parents. My daughters are now grown up and leaving home. I can’t be 100% sure they will be safe and this film is a kind of cautionary tale about the question: can you trust anyone who knocks on your door?“.
dave bautista He’s spoken over the last year about how he wants to be a more dramatic actor and Shyamalan wanted the eye to cast him in the role: “I’m interested in actors who manage to achieve something. I had seen Dave Bautista in Blade Runner 2049 and although he has a small part, I saw something in him. The role of Leonard was written for a giant who is as innocent as a child. I didn’t know him from before, I didn’t know about wrestling and his life, but I found him wonderful and after the film I have the confirmation. It must be interesting, I thought, to be so big and capable of potentially killing us with one punch (he laughs), but at the same time knowing that when he talks to others he feels responsible for protecting them. After all, he is 50 years old and you have to be brave.
M. Night Shyamalan and religion
Religion has always been part of M. Night Shyamalan’s life: he attended a Catholic school and his parents are Hindu, his mother always told him from an early age to go to the prayer room and cover his head with ashes. Knock on the Door is a film about belief rather than faith: “We all believe in something, we must recognize the pain in believing and the vulnerability in doing so. Now I have a different awareness and I could not have told the same story as when I was twenty with The Sixth Sense. Experience and life change your perspectives, the world has also changed in the meantime. In beauty, to get there, there is a lot of ugliness and a lot of scars. I always tell young directors that you need to know how to find a balance when making a film, in your works and in your stories. There must not be a polarization of light and dark. It must not be said that there is only light because it is not so, the film can not always end with the big touchdown and the guy who brings home the victory at the last second“.
And he adds: “I’m fascinated by religious mythology, if it were real how it would manifest itself in our world, here for example are the four horsemen of the Apocalypse, who until then felt insignificant. They are confused and lost biblical figures, they are ordinary people in the end. I became addicted to that feeling in a way. We human beings are important, as a family unit or as individuals. Coming to Rome to present the film, the city of the Vatican and the Pope, made me think: what are the stories we believe in? Everyone is looking for meaning especially today and have a hard time finding it“.
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For this film Shyamalan has decided to use the old language of cinema, asking for the old logo from Universal Pictures which distributes the film: “There was an older language, very large, bulky and heavy lenses. The camera couldn’t go anywhere like the dolly but I really wanted it and I preferred it. I prefer to limit the tools available even with the composers and with the others on the set. Limit the color palette to be able to come up with something new. When you find inconsistencies in a film it means that perhaps it has had too much freedom in a certain sense. As a viewer, you have to sense integrity in all of the director’s choices“.
Knocking at the door seems to continue the apocalyptic discourse of And the day came: “There the fate of humanity was already decided at the beginning of the film and we saw the consequences, but here humans decide their fate. I’ve been asked if my view of humanity has changed and maybe it has. All of us are capable of impossible choices and horrible choices in certain circumstances, such as in war, for good and especially for bad. We have to have that kind of self-forgiveness within us. We’re not sure if it’s worth it but it’s what we leave to our children“.
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Knock on the door, the differences with the book
After Old, once again M. Night Shyamalan is based on a story already written and not in his own hand. The film is in fact an adaptation of the 2018 novel The house at the end of the world by Paul Tremblay. He explained how they are stories that struck him, for themes similar to his poetics, where he then tries to bring his ideas and his experience of him. There is an irrational combination of elements that leads him to choose: “Of this last film I loved the choice of Sophie who is at the center of the story. I wanted to tell a different version of the story, not just adapt it. I wanted to tell about when there is no good or right answer but you have to do it. A bit like in The word to the jurors: you have to get the characters to choose something they would never have chosen“.
Continua Shyamalan: “I’m not sure there is a difference between the fear of the Apocalypse and the choices of human beings to have arrived at the world we live in. I don’t know if you know the story of Ishmael, a migrant called a monkey who talking to another man tells him ‘You were wrong when you invented religion and thought you were more important than us. In the film it is about believing in one’s partner in life. To trust. In the book they basically don’t make a choice. It would have been dishonest for me as a director not to do it given the question posed at the beginning of the story. As in The word to the jurors“.
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There is a knock on the door and the Covid
The isolation in which the protagonists of Knocking at the door cannot fail to make one think of the isolation we have experienced in the last three years due to the pandemic: “When we think about what the virus has done, how fragile and vulnerable we have felt, it is incredible. For example, I was thinking about my parents, about how the inattentive behavior of others could lead me to catch the virus and pass it on to them, risking even killing them. Their life was in the hands of others and it’s a difficult thought, we experienced a sort of global existential crisis, we were filled with fear. Just think of our reaction if someone coughed or sneezed, not just strangers but also family members who were not from the immediate family unit. Or my sister’s dog licked my hand. I think it’s a period that has taught us a lot, to choose the family, the small one, before all the rest“.
Conclude: “For my part, being a writer I’m used to working alone and the isolation has allowed me to relax and enjoy time for myself. However, I had my children, my parents and my sister close by and I was lucky in that. Others have not had this luck“.
