The Sixth Sense (1999)

'The Sixth Sense' is an American supernatural horror-thriller film written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan. I remember that it was my parents who first introduced me to this film when I was younger. During then, it really seemed like a horror film to me and I used to be so scared (I know, why would my parents show a kid a horror film in the first place). But as I continued watching this film from time to time as I grow up (because it is such a good film), I understand that it was not so much of a horror film anymore, but more like a psychological thriller. Every time when I show it to my other friends or my younger siblings or cousins, I could not help but to be a spoiler, just like how my parents used to spoil it for me. 

I would say: "It's so sad when Dr. Malcolm finds out later that he's actually dead!" - there you go, I did it again!

This film is actually the closest to heart among all the other films that I have watched in this class. Other than the reason because my parents and I watch this together all the time, another reason would be because of the meaning and the ending of the film. I personally really love the ending of 'The Sixth Sense'. So today, for this particular film, I may not want to analyze so much about the psychological reasonings or any theories behind this film. Instead, I really want to reflect and to share how I feel about this film and which part of the film touches me the most.

Cole is a character in this film whom I really sympathize with. I realized how much struggles this little boy actually went through all by himself and it touched me. Due to the fact that he knew no one would actually believed him, Cole kept the secret (that he can see and talk to ghosts) to himself for such a long time no matter how afraid or terrified he was. Even though I think that Cole was really brave to have endured all these experiences alone, I feel very sad and sorry for this character at the same time. In the scene where Cole was having breakfast while his mother, Lynn went to fetch him a new tie from the laundry and then suddenly all the kitchen cabinets were opened, it was obvious that the ghosts did it. But because Cole knew that his mother would not believe him if he had told her so, he took the blame himself and said that he was looking for something. When he left the table, the handprints and sweats on the table showed how much this little boy was terrified. Another scene where Cole was shivering and crying in his tent because he had just saw a ghost also showed how much this poor boy was scared. But still, no matter how scared Cole was, he could never tell anyone because if he did, people would send him away, teachers would have meetings with his mother and classmates would look at him in the way he never want them to. So the only things that he could do was to take refuge in the church and to steal figurines from the church to build his very own refugee tent in his room. It touched me most to have to imagine the amount of fear and stress a child like Cole would be experiencing to have to endure all these by himself and still cared a lot about what other people think of him. For example, Cole would constantly ask his mother about what she thought of him throughout the film. He cared a lot about what his mother thought of him. Fortunately, even though Cole may seemed like a troubled child, Lynn would also constantly reassure Cole about what she thought of him and that she loved him very very much. As a mother, she was always there to protect and to care for him - the random 'trolley scene' in the film seemed to want to show how much Lynn wanted to try to make Cole happy.

Initially Cole did not want to open up and to let Dr. Malcolm help him because he thought that Dr. Malcolm would not believe him either. But surprisingly, when Dr. Malcolm began to share his personal issue in which his wife would not talk to him, he began to bond and to build a certain degree of trust with Cole and that was when Cole decided to tell him his secret. This showed how sometimes it is possible and wise for therapists to cross certain boundaries with the client if it would bring benefits such as building rapport and trust with the client. However, even after Cole had revealed his secret, Dr. Malcolm did not fully trust him. In fact, he even diagnosed Cole as having delusions (which is rational because it is quite hard to believe that it was all supernatural). 

This brings back to the matter which we can all reflect as therapists - how much do we actually believe in our clients and will the amount of trust we have on our clients influence our judgement and affect how much we can help them?

In this film, the answer is YES. In Cole's case, the only way to help him was to get rid of the ghosts and there was no possible way for Dr. Malcolm to help him if he did not believe him in the first place. Just as what Cole would say; "How can you help me when you don't believe me?"

Anyhow, I am glad that Cole was given a happy ending in the film. From being terrified by the ghosts, Cole became really brave to have faced his fear and to confront the ghosts. By confronting, Cole was able to help the ghosts with their unfinished business and most importantly, he was no longer terrified by them anymore. We can actually learn from Cole's experience in the film and apply it to our lives. In our lives, there are certainly many things that scare us or terrify us to move on. But only if we allow ourselves to have courage and to confront the matter, anything and everything can be solved.

Besides Cole, the story between Malcolm and his wife, Anna also touched me a lot. I do agree that the plot twist would be much more effective for first-time viewer however, no matter how many times I watch this film, I still feel the pain. Other than the beginning and the ending of the film, this entire film was showing how the relationship and the marriage between Malcolm and Anna was breaking apart. She would not talk to him, she ignored him all the time and there was a chance that she was going out with another man. Malcolm thought that it was because of his job. Cole suggested to him that maybe he should try to talk to her while she was asleep. He did, and that was when he discovered the reason why she had been ignoring him all the while. While she was asleep, she asked Malcolm why did he leave her and she dropped his wedding ring. The moment when he finally realized that the reason Anna would ignore him all the time was not because she was angry at him but because he was dead, there were certainly some mixed feelings that he was going through at the moment. Thanks to Cole, Malcolm was able to complete his unfinished business - to rectify his failure to help his ex-client, Vincent. Similarly, thanks to Cole's suggestion to talk to Anna while she was asleep, he also had a chance to tell his wife that she was never second and that he had loved her very very much. After all the happenings in the film, it turns out that Malcolm was also another ghost in need of Cole's help to complete his unfinished business. 

Lastly, towards the end of the film, Cole had decided that he finally would like to communicate with his mother. Even though she was happy that Cole was finally opening up to her, she was not very glad to hear about his 'gift'. However, when Cole started telling her about her mother (his deceased grandmother), again, I could not hold back my tears. In our day-to-day lives, sometimes, being a grown-up child to our parents, we would say things that hurt our parents' feelings or there are things that we keep to ourselves and which we do not tell our parents often - things like how much we love them. Come to think of it, we should definitely tell our parents how much we love them before it is too late. Just like in the film, Lynn's mother never had a chance to tell her that she was so proud of her. Thanks to Cole, Lynn finally had a chance to know her mother's unsaid words.

There are certainly many great things that I loved about 'The Sixth Sense'. Besides the wonderful storyline and the plot twist, I admired Cole's character for his courage and I sympathized with Cole's experience. Most importantly, I learn one very important thing from this film , that is, never have regrets in life. We should say things that we want to say to our loved ones and do things that we want to do when we still have the chance. No one knows exactly how long we get to live so we should appreciate the things and people around us while we can.

Whale Rider (2002)

In this beautiful film about family and the rich culture of the Maori tribe in New Zealand, Paikea is a twelve-year-old girl who struggles to earn his grandfather's acknowledgement and to prove herself worthy to be the new chief of the tribe. Unfortunately, due to the traditional custom of the tribe, only the first-born males in the family are able to take this role. Through this film, several meaningful themes can be seen:

#1 Sexism

The theme sexism can be clearly seen even at the start of the film, that is when Paikea was born. At birth, Paikea's twin brother died, bringing their mother with him. This left Paikea's father devastated at the loss of his wife. However, when Koro, Paikea's grandfather first arrived at the hospital, he did not look or even asked anything about his deceased daughter-in-law. Instead, all he was interested about was the news of his grandson. When Koro found out that only the baby girl survived, he was not very happy about it. This is because he had been waiting so long for the arrival of a new first-born MALE in the family - someone who could finally take up the role of the new chief of the tribe.
Unfortunately, Paikea being a girl could not help him realize his wish.

To even begin with, Koro did not even allow Paikea's father, Porourangi to name his daughter 'Paikea' in the first place! This was because Paikea was the name of the whale rider who rode on top of the whale all the way from Hawaiki (AKA their descendant). So Koro thought that since the baby was a girl, she was not worthy of the name of their descendant.

Koro also had a very strong principle in gender roles, as well as gender stereotypes. Due to the fact that he still resented the fact that his first-born grandchild was a girl, was Paikea, he started blaming her for all the conflicts that happened in the tribe. There was a scene in the film where he said, "When she was born, everything went wrong for us." In order to fix this, Koro started a cultural school for ONLY BOYS to teach them their traditional customs and qualities of a chief. Throughout the entire film, Paikea could be seen as a born talented person with natural qualities of a chief! However, just because she was a girl, Koro chose to ignore her qualities and had discouraged her many times. For example, Paikea was really interested in learning the taiaha and she was really good at it too, but just because it was traditionally reserved for boys only, Koro got really angry at Paikea for learning it by herself secretly and he even chased her out of the house. Not only that, Koro even discouraged Paikea by telling her that her acts of showing off would do no benefits but only to degrade the boys. For a girl as talented as Paikea, by right more praises should be given to her, especially when she was trying so hard to make him proud. But deep down, Koro knew that he could never praise Paikea because that would make her even want to prove herself and THAT would be against his gender role bias in his culture.

Paikea on the other hand was really trying to break the gender stereotypes. She often challenged herself to do things that Koro or the other boys may think that she could not do. One interesting example was when she raced the school bus with her own bike! All the boys in the bus were yelling at the driver to not let her passed the vehicle and they were asking the driver to go faster than Paikea. However, seeing the boys' reactions towards this challenge, she felt even more proud and she cycled even faster! Another scene that she challenged herself in doing was she tried to dive into the water to retrieve Koro's rei puta - something which the boys failed to do and which made Koro really devastated.

#2 Importance of Family Root

Through the film we could also see the admirable trait of the Maori people who valued their family roots and protected their traditions, especially Paikea and Koro. Even though some of us may not be able to agree with Koro's stubbornness and his gender stereotypes, we should all be able to understand that whatever that he was doing, he did it to protect their customs. It was undeniable that he chose the customs over his own granddaughter which resulted in mistreating her. But to come to think of it, he was just trying to follow and to keep the traditions that had been practiced for years (which happened to discriminate the females). But the fact that he chose the customs over the love for Paikea clearly showed that Koro was a man who valued customs, traditions and family roots very much.

Even though Paikea was discouraged in her belief that she could be the chief of the tribe since the day she was born, she held onto her traditions and family roots very much. Unlike her father who refused to assume the role of the chief of the tribe, she enjoyed learning about their traditional dances, chants, martial arts and even their tribe's history. Whenever she introduced herself, she would always mentioned that she was a direct patrilineal descendant of Paikea.


#3 Love for Family

One of the things that touched me the most in this film was the transition of the birth scene to the scene where Paikea had already grown up. During the end of the birth scene, we could see that Koro did not really like Paikea because she was born as a female. The narration by Paikea herself in the beginning of this film had also mentioned something about it which led us to expect Koro to not wanting to admit Paikea as his granddaughter. However, the following scene after that had really touched me. Not only that Koro accepted Paikea into the family, the scene where they rode on the bicycle together had shown that Koro really cared and loved Paikea as his granddaughter, and they have formed an affectionate bond with each other. If I were to vote the best scene throughout the entire film, I would definitely vote this scene as my favourite!

In the following scene where the two main characters had spent some time together talking about the history of their tribe, Koro was teaching Paikea about the importance of the unity of their families and tribe. Later in the same scene, Paikea managed to help Koro to fix his boat engine (using her brilliant mind). When she was happily showing Koro that she had successfully fixed it, Koro was not very happy. Koro did explain in the film the reason why he was unhappy with what Paikea had done, which was the fact that he was afraid that she would hurt herself. Yes, this showed how much Koro cared for her.

PS: However, I figured there should be another hidden reason behind this. As much as Koro was worried that she would hurt herself by fixing that engine, he also did not want Paikea to be too capable and intelligent. Why? Simple. He did not want to believe that she was destined to inherit the leadership.

There was another scene in the film which I found heart-breaking - the part where Paikea decided to leave the village and to follow her father back to Germany. Before Paikea left, she asked to have a ride on the bicycle with Koro in the front yard for the last time. This was something that she had been doing with Koro every day and it was upsetting to watch Koro carried her for the last time on his bicycle. But as soon as she was leaving, Koro did not even look at her for the last time and he went straight into the house. Before anyone could thought that he was being mean and cold-hearted, he was seen staring at his beloved granddaughter from the window. This scene actually reminded me of my own grandfather who never looked at us when we were leaving every time after our visit. I wonder if he was like Koro too, staring out at us from where we could not see him. Unfortunately I will never have the chance to check him out the next time we visit because he had already left us.

Paikea's bond with Koro was incredibly touching in this film, honestly. Even though Koro was so hard on her, Paikea  was always patient and she tried to be understanding towards him. She never gave up trying to prove herself to Koro and her love for her grandfather was always there no matter what. When Koro was devastated over the loss of the rei puta, he wanted to call out to his ancestors but he failed. Paikea then called out to their ancestors in attempt to help Koro even though she knew this would probably get her into trouble. Lastly when something horrible happened at the beach (probably related to what she had done), she even sacrificed her own life for the sake of her people, especially her grandfather.

Another interesting bond between family members, besides Paikea and Koro, was the father-son relationship between Koro and Porourangi (Paikea's father). Throughout the entire film, there was no obvious affection shown between these two men. However, certain affection or love need not to be shown obviously, but can be seen in other forms. For example, Koro finding a new wife for Porourangi was probably because he wanted another grandson to inherit his leadership. But come to think of it, it has been many years since Paikea's mother had passed. It could be that Koro wanted to find a new companion for his son as well. Nevertheless, even though both of them may not seemed to be talking to each other very much, nothing breaks a bond between a father and son, no matter what. When Porourangi first returned to the village, though Koro did not show, he seemed glad that his son has returned. Similarly, Porourangi also seemed to have a lot of stories about his adventures to share with his father but he was kind of reluctant to talk as well. I wonder why... probably this has something to do with their man egos, or perhaps it is the matter of gender difference where men are usually uncomfortable to talk about feelings and emotions (unlike women). Hence, it would be most appropriate for them to show their love for each other though the things they do.