My (All-Time) Favorite Movie Scene

I meant to write this entry days ago, but my classes and work have really been suffocating my free time. My fellow blogging friend Keith posted an entry about his favorite movie scene and I wanted to write my own. I'm not a huge movie buff and I don't watch them often - I much prefer television - but there are some movies with which I'm eternally obsessed, and that makes choosing only one scene particularly difficult to me. This sort of entry might need to turn into a series . . .

Lady in the Water is a lesser-known, and pretty widely-disliked M. Night Shyamalan film from 2006. It's a contemporary fantasy movie based around a lonely superintendent and a girl from a storybook who is trapped in our world. I'm not much of a fan of Shyamalan's other work, but I was immediately inspired and fell in love with this movie the first time I saw it. It's visually gorgeous, with strange comedy, and terribly tragic characters, the kind of movie at which I'll laugh and cry simultaneously. It's also a movie about fate and interconnectedness between people and places that leads to something larger. It's about the roles that even insignificant, average, and forgotten people play in that interconnectedness.

I think the following clip can be played without spoiling the movie. It's a scene during which the superintendent, Cleveland, discovers his own role, and lets go of the silence and sadness that his character harbors.

When I watch this movie, and others like it, it gives me hope that the universe is indeed larger than Earth (and I mean that figuratively, or spiritually), that there are reasons for the circumstances we face, that we can make ourselves better and make ourselves an important part of something larger. I love this movie, and I don't understand why so many other people do not.

"Once, man and those in the water were linked. They inspired us. They spoke of the future. Man listened and it became real. But man does not listen very well. Man's need to own everything led him deeper into land. The magic world of the ones that lived in the ocean... and the world of men... separated. Through the centuries, their world and all the inhabitants of it... stopped trying. The world of man became more violent. War upon war played out, as there were no guides to listen to. Now those in the water are trying again... trying to reach us. A handful of their precious young ones have been sent into the world of man. They are brought in the dead of night... to where man lives. They need only be glimpsed... and the awakening of man will happen. But their enemies roam the land. There are laws that are meant to keep the young ones safe... but they are sent at great risk to their lives. Many... do not return. Yet still they try... try to help man. But man has forgotten how to listen..."