Unbreakable

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Unbreakable

This page refers to "Unbreakable" the film. For other uses, see Unbreakable (disambiguation).

Unbreakable is a 2000 movie written, produced and directed by M. Night Shyamalan, starring Bruce Willis and Samuel L. Jackson.

Details

The movie Unbreakable explores the role that myth has in our civilization, and specifically explores the way that humans use comic books to explore mythic dimensions of the real world. The film works on a second level, for within the film itself comic books are in a real sense man's last link to an "ancient way of story-telling".

In DVD commentary, Shyamalan claims he was in the process of writing a single movie using a comic-book three-part structure (the superhero's birth, their struggles against general evil-doers, and their ultimate battle against the "arch enemy"). However, he found the "birth" section far more interesting than the remainder and decided to base the entire movie around the idea.

Many have compared this film with The Sixth Sense because it shares the same writer and director, and star actor, has the same type of plot structure, and reveals a surprise ending. The film was only a modest box-office success though critically acclaimed for its original and offbeat spin on the superhero mythos. Shyamalan himself considers the film a lesser effort and attributes the lack of commercial success to the rushed nature of its production and a lack of emotion, though many of the film's fans disagree, and claim that it is underrated.

Plot

Elijah Price is born with Type I Osteogenesis imperfecta, a rare disease in which the bones lack collagen of sufficient quality and/or quantity, and thus break very easily. He is even born with broken bones, as shown in the first scene of the movie, and later receives the nickname "Mr. Glass." He lives his life searching for a reason for his own existence. He theorizes that if he is at one end of a curve then perhaps there is somebody else quite opposite to him at the other end, someone with greater than usual strengths.

David Dunn is also searching for a meaning to his life. He gives up a promising American football career to be with the girl he loved, but after their marriage and the birth of a son he still feels an emptiness - something is missing. After surviving a massive train wreck (unharmed and as the only survivor), he is contacted by Price, who proposes to a disbelieving Dunn that he is, in fact, a modern day "superhero" (although the word is never used through the course of the film, except when referring to actual comic-book characters). Elijah theorizes that comic book superheros are a modern manifestation of something ancient about humanity; a pictoral history similar to Egyptian hieroglyphs, trying to record something long past. Elijah believes that comic book heros are an echo, mimicking pre-historic stories of human beings who truly had greater than normal strength and abilities. The first comic book heros were closer to reality, but over time the medium became commercialized, and artists started to insert things which were outlandish and highly fictional. Elijiah beleves that Dunn is supernatural: that his immunity to illness and his experience with the train crash indicates that David has the strength that Elijiah lacks. Dunn has never been able to swim, however, and in elementary school nearly died as a result. Price claims that this is simply the exception to his powers: to balance out their increased abilities, all superheroes also possess a specific weakness. Dunn eventually begins to understand his hyperadvanced instinct, which reveals to him the illegal tendencies of those around him upon any physical touch.

As Dunn begins to understand his purpose in the world, he begins to feel whole again, and is able to renew his relationship with his wife and his son. This leads to David's first 'heroic act': going out wearing his "Security" poncho (which draws visual parallels to a "Superhero" in a cape and hood) at Elijah's encouragement to prove that he truly is something special. David walks through crowds in a Philadelphia train station, until his 'second sight' tells him that a janitor he has passed is a psychotic murderer who is living in his victims' home with his family captive. David follows him back to the house, where he finds the dead man. Upstairs, he releases the two tied-up daughters, and finds the mother in a separate room, apparently unconscious. David is ambushed by the serial killer, who throws David onto a tarp laying on top of a pool. The tarp begins to fall into the pool, exposing David to his weakness, water, and nearly killing him. At the last moment, he grabs the handle of a pool skimmer and is pulled up by the children he just saved. David then confronts the serial killer. David tries to choke him from behind, but the crazed serial killer slams him backwards repeatedly into a wall. David is "unbreakable", however, and not seriously harmed. He chokes the man to death and releases the mother, only to find that she was already dead.

In the final moments of the film, David discovers that Price has caused several terrible disasters, including the train accident that opens the movie, in order to find someone who would miraculously survive as David did. Price insists to Dunn that he performed these deeds only to find meaning in his life. Price then justifies his actions by comparing his relationship with Dunn to that of an often repeated motif in superhero stories: that the hero and the villain are opposites, and often even friends at first. Captions run over the final shot, saying that after leaving David informed the police about Elijah (whose office is littered with newspaper clippings and evidence right in the open that he was responsible for the disasters), and Elijah is arrested and sent to an institute for the criminally insane.

Technique

Mirror Imagery predominates in the first half of the movie. When Dunn is interrogated by the Doctor after the train crash, it is viewed through a mirror. When we see Elijah as a child for the first time post-birth, we see in the reflection of a television screen. The use of reflexive mirror imagery mostly stops after grown-up Elijah begins his dealings with David, indicating that the two are duplicates of each other. These shots generally are meant to reveal the symmetry between the two leading characters, as they are opposites. This technique also makes the images on screen seem like the squares of a comic strip. A dark, blueish filter is also used in many scenes, creating a subdued but unnerving atmosphere that matches the storyline. While most of the film is a deep, dark blue, certain scenes are shown in warmer colors to create contrast. These scenes involve David, whose world is much less bleak than Elijah's. Primary colors were sometimes added to give the sense of the flat, simple coloring of early comics, and characters who David senses as doing evil are often shown wearing primary colors in contrast to other actors surrounding them.

Comic book references

As in comic books, the main characters have their identified color schemes:
- David's clothes are green, and he is wearing a dark green hooded rain poncho on his first night out.
- Elijah's clothes are purple (a favorite color of Samuel L. Jackson), a prominent color amongst supervillains, especially in the 1960s and 1970s (cf. Lex Luthor, Joker)
- The serial killer's janitor uniform is bright orange.
- Generally, anyone seen in one of David's 'visions' is wearing a bright color - a rapist in luminous green (unlike the darker, forest and khaki green that David is linked to), a hate crime thug in bright yellow, a drug dealer in blue, a thief in red and so forth.
David and Elijah are shown to be each other's opposite in many ways, including their contrasting skin color, hair, class status as well as their physical makeup. David is all but invincible, while Elijah is extremely brittle. They are opposite in nearly every way except their reaction to water, which can kill either. They are on the same spectrum, just at different ends.
As in many comic books, the hero's first and last names are alliterative (cf. Clark Kent, Bruce Banner, Peter Parker, Matt Murdock, Reed Richards)
When Joseph watches the television news report on the train wreck, the station logo (an encircled "4"), vaguely resembles the logo for the Fantastic Four comic books.
The cover art for Elijah's first comic book is similar to that of Wolverine vs. Lobo.
Elijah describes how the artwork of a villain features a slightly enlarged head and eyes. Elijah's head appears slightly larger than normal because of his hairstyle.
The hero has an Achilles' heel-weakness (in David's case, water), like Superman being affected by Kryptonite.
The superhero and the villain were once friends before they became arch enemies (cf. Superman and Lex Luthor, Mr. Fantastic and Dr. Doom, Spider-Man and Harry Osborn, Professor X and Magneto, Batman and Two-Face)
A superhero uses "basic english" in speaking, a supervillain uses "learned (i.e., well-educated) english" in speaking.
Before facing the murderer, David tilts his head so that the poncho's hood casts a shadow over his face. This can be likened to a hero putting on his full costume before fighting evil. The poncho also ceases to hide David's face when he is at risk of dying.
In a scene taking place in a small comic book shop, the clerk tells Elijah that he better not be jacking off to Japanese Manga. As a movie about a distinctly American form of comics (the superhero) it makes a slight jab at another popular genre of graphic fiction.
One of the comics at Elijah's artshow that we can clearly see is that of The Mighty Thor. Much like Elijah and David, Thor existed on two opposite sides of the spectrum. In his mortal identity of Donald Blake, Thor was frail and needed the use of walking stick, but as Thor he possessed the power of an indestructable god.

David Dunn's Powers

He has never been sick except for two incidents which revealed his weakness, water (drowning, pneumonia).
His tissues are far more resistant to damage and stress than equivalent normal human tissue.
He has tremendous strength, easily able to lift weights of at least 350 pounds (he benches 500 in a deleted scene). In a flashback sequence, he is able to tear a car's door off its hinges. He has to exert himself and doesn't just effortlessly lift incredible weights (like Superman), but in the weight lifting scene it is revealed that the functional limit of his strength is many times what he thought it was.
He has the ability to tell if someone has done something bad if he comes in physical contact with him or her, a form of psychometry. This is explained in the film as an extremely developed form of instinct.

Elijah Price's Powers

Evil genius
The exact opposite of the "spectrum" from David Dunn, he has a specific weakness caused by his bone disease that makes him extremely susceptible to physical harm.
Elijah Price also shares the vulnerability to water. Unlike Dunn who's bones are too heavy for him to swim, Elijah's condition prevents him from being fit enough to swim.

External links

2000 films | Thriller films | Films directed by M. Night Shyamalan | Superhero films | Philadelphia in film and television

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