The Others (2001)
review by Suspirorium

World War II has just finished, & Grace (Nicole Kidman) is living in a secluded mansion in Jersey with her two children Anne (Alakina Mann), & Nicholas (James Bentley). Struggling to cope after her servants mysteriously disappear, & with her husband MIA, Grace is thankful when a new trio of servants (Fionnula Flanagan, Eric Sykes & Elaine Cassidy) arrive. But Anne claims to see & hear ghostly "others" in the house, & soon even the repressed, overprotective Grace has to acknowledge that something is wrong as her stable, closeted work disintegrates.

Kidman is simply perfect as Grace: fragile, neurotic & brittle but with a hidden reserve of defiance & elegance. It’s a tricky role, which could easily have lost the audiences’ sympathies, but Kidman pulls it off with aplomb. Here she is both a genuine, old-fashioned movie star, effortlessly commanding the screen, & a terrific actress working at her peak. Her performance is even more worthy of an Oscar nomination than her deliciously unrestrained turn in Moulin Rouge, & it’s a real shame that it didn’t materialise. Kidman may be the star, but she’s surrounded by a terrific ensemble of character actors who lift the film up to another level. It’s always great to see Eric Sykes, & Flanagan, Cassidy & Christopher Eccleston all deliver superb turns. The two children are both terrific, deathly pale & supremely creepy, they are entirely convincing.

Unlike so much modern horror, Amenabar goes back to the traditional values of haunted house horrors, complete with self-opening doors, weird banging et al. He takes the film slowly & quietly, gently instilling in the audience a gnawing sense of dread & terror, rather than going for quick shocks & gore. It’s a technique that pays off handsomely with real frights actually earned, creating an all-enveloping atmosphere of unease that constantly threatens to erupt into pure naked terror. It’s a masterpiece of restraint & subtlety in an age where such things are almost dirty words. The film is constantly shrouded in darkness that creates terror in the mind by not showing what is – or merely might be – lurking in the corners. The darkness is not merely some empty, stylistic conceit forced in without reason, but the result of an ingenious central idea that’s so clever you wonder why no-one hasn’t thought of it before. You see, the children suffer from a rare photosensitive disorder that makes them allergic to sunlight. We tend to be naturally fearful of the dark, but Amenabar manages to make us fearful of the light too. He shows exemplary command of space in creating unease, & is aided by some gorgeous cinematography by Javier Aguirresarobe, & Benjamin Fernandez’ creepy but realistic production design.

Sound is also extremely important in this film, both Isabel Diaz Cassous’ excellent sound design & the haunting (sorry) score, written by Amenabar himself, which is merely one element that shows the his admiration for The Changeling. As I’ve mentioned before, this is a very quiet film, but despite the familiarity of certain devices (e.g. the piano, the strange noises upstairs), their effectiveness is undimmed in Amenabars’ sure hands.

The Others has been compared to The Sixth Sense, since both are gently paced ghost stories featuring small children, one big star, & a twist at the end. Personally, I believe that The Others is the superior film. For one thing, it’s tighter, more focused, better structured, & scarier, with an ever-increasing sense of terror that builds up to & includes the twist, which is integral to everything that has happened up to that point. Sixth Sense stops being scary about two thirds of the way in, and has a twist tacked on to the end after the main, slightly more disparate, narrative has concluded. The Others has a better twist too, which carries more emotional force & is even more shattering than the one in Sixth Sense, although saying any more about it would spoil the surprise. Pleasingly, the film plays just as well when you do know the twist as when you don’t.

The Others, then, is that rare thing nowadays – a genuinely adult chiller. If you’re after pacy shock, gore & one-liners then go watch Scream or somesuch – you simply don’t deserve a film as superbly crafted as this. Clever without being clever-clever, emotional without being sentimental, intelligent without being too cerebral, & elegantly paced without being boring, The Others is a miraculous movie. An old-fashioned, genuinely frightening treat that mixes European art movie with classical Hollywood style, it’s only too happy to prove you wrong just when you’d thought they didn’t make ‘em like this anymore.

Dimensions’ Collectors Edition DVD set boasts a pretty strong 16x9 enhanced widescreen picture. Aquirresarobe’s cinematography is not easy to do justice to although, some slight grain notwithstanding, the DVD manages it very well. Things are even better with the audio, which comes in the shape of English & French Dolby 5.1 tracks. It’s a shame there’s no DTS alternative, but this is still a fine track, showing off Amenabar’s score & the wonderful sound design to terrific effect.

In terms of extras, given that this is a 2-disc set, you would seem to be getting a huge amount. On disc on, there are a few "sneak peeks", which is simply a few short trailers for The Others soundtrack, Dimension films, Miramax films, & a few other movies, such as Texas Rangers, Kate & Leopold, & Zu Warriors (8 in total). Inserting disc two, you find a fine 23-minute documentary, "A Look Inside The Others", made after the films’ success. It’s not too self-congratulatory, and is worth at least one viewing. In addition, there’s a five minute visual effects breakdown sequence, using split-screen comparisons of a few effects sequences, which shows how subtle the use of CG is (I wouldn’t have noticed them being as such). Plus there’s a 9-minute documentary about XP, the real life disease featured in the film, which is actually pretty interesting, plus "An Intimate Look at Director Alejandro Amenabar", which is actually just 8-minutes of on-set footage showing him in action. It’s actually quite interesting to watch once, but is not likely to demand many viewings. Rounding the set off are the original trailer, & a still gallery.

It’s far from a bad selection of extras, & if this were a standard single disc issue, I’d be very pleased. But for a two disc collectors edition, there’s not actually quite as much as you would hope, & most extras will only be watched once or twice. Still, the film’s strong enough to make this a very worthwhile purchase, which I do recommend.