M. Night Shyamalan’s daughter, already a collaborator of her father, makes her feature film debut with a fantastic and horrifying story that also hides a female specificity. In addition to a long unpublished clip, we tell you what you need to know about The Watchers, in cinemas from today, June 6, with Warner Bros. Pictures Italia.
Together with his wife Bhavna Vaswani, whom he met at New York University when both were students, M. Night Shyamalan he has three daughters. One of her chose music, she is known as a singer with her first name, Salekaand we will soon see her in her father’s new film, which is entitled Trap. Ishanahowever, he has been following in his father’s footsteps for several years, cutting his teeth alongside him: he acted as second unit director for him in films such as Old And Knocking at the doorbut above all she was the screenwriter of ten episodes and director of six (one more than Manoj) of the splendid TV series Servant.
The time was therefore more than ripe for this daughter of an artist (in America they will certainly call her nepo-baby, with derogatory intent) to make her debut in directing a feature film: from today, June 6th, his brand new The Watchers will be in Italian cinemas distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures Italia.
The Watchers: official trailer and plot of the film
Coming from producer M. Night Shyamalan is ‘The Watchers’ written and directed by Ishana Night Shyamalan and based on the novel by AM Shine. The film follows Mina, a 28-year-old artist, who finds herself stranded and isolated in a vast, pristine forest in the west of Ireland. When Mina finds shelter, she unknowingly becomes trapped with three strangers who are spied on and haunted every night by mysterious creatures.
The story of The Watchers was born as a novel. The Irishman wrote it AM Shinepassionate about horror, history and superstitions, indebted to the Gothic as of Edgar Allan Poewho in addition to “The Watchers” also published another novel, entitled “The Creeper”, and two collections of short stories.
She was the one who adapted Shine’s novel into a screenplay Ishana Shyamalanwhich filmed in Ireland, between Dublin, Wicklow and Galway, between July and September 2023, also managing to avoid, thanks to an agreement between the parties, the interruption of filming when the actors’ union SAG-AFTRA called the famous strike that paralyzed the American film industry for weeks.
Among the performers who took advantage of this agreement, the protagonist Dakota Fanning, someone who at just thirty years old already has more than two decades of career. Recently female protagonist of the TV series Ripleyin which he played the role of Marge Sherwood, Dakota Fanning he was only seven years old when, in 2001, he shared the set with Sean Penn And Michelle Pfeiffer in My name is Sam, and earned a Screen Actors Guild nomination; two years later she was alongside Denzel Washington in Man on Fire Of Tony Scottand after two others he was the protagonist, together with Tom Cruiseof the spectacular War of the Worlds Of Steven Spielberg.
Unlike other child actresses, Dakota Fanning she was able to continue her career as the years went by, and to star in very different films: over the last twenty years, Fanning it was there Jane of the saga of Twilight and the singer Cherie Currie in The Runaways; in the cast of arthouse films such as Night Moves Of Kelly Reichardt or Once upon a time in Hollywood Of Quentin Tarantinobut also in that of more commercial products such as Ocean’s 8 Of Gary Ross.
Ishana Shyamalan he said he had long been looking for inspiration for his first feature film, something that contained elements Fantasy as much as thriller, and that he found it as soon as he started reading Shine’s book, which he called “very visual. She forces you to think about what these worlds and characters can look like visually.” The director then made direct reference to what she felt and visualized while reading the book at the time of writing the script and shooting.
Among other inspirations cited by Ishana Shyamalan for this film – which is a horror-thriller, the genre most loved by the director – there is an almost unsuspected title: Antichrist. The director said she was inspired by the dark, witchy tone and feelings of that film Lars Von Trieras well as with its connection to the natural world.
It is no coincidence that much of the preparation work for The Watcher went into finding the right forest to set the story: “We made three or four trips visiting the places that are normally used for film shoots”, said the director, ” but none of those seemed right to me.” Ultimately, Ishana Shyamalan found it in the Ballinastoe Wood, County Wicklowthe place with what he called “the right energy”.
We can therefore immerse ourselves in this right, disturbing energy thanks to this new and long clip which tells us precisely about the moment in which the Mina Of Dakota Fanningtraveling from Galway to Belfast, loses her way and literally ends up prisoner of the forest populated by the “Watchers”, the Observers of the title, and finds refuge in a strange structure, called the Lairwhere he meets the other protagonists of this thriller:
In a film that will not fail to surprise with its choices and its twists, an idea remains at the center which is that of family, of human and family dynamics which remain more important than the fantastic and horror elements. In particular, Isaha Shayamalan stated that ideas of femininity and motherhood are at the center of the story, which can also be read as that of the relationship between two characters: one maternal, one filial. “But it’s not just a film for female audiences,” warns the director: “it’s also a muscular, courageous, powerful film. Like the women who are the protagonists, and who I hope go beyond the stereotypes a little.”
