early in the movie, the heroine tells her spouse to "compartmentalize", and i think that's what's at the heart of this - human beings have to disregard to survive, children cope through imagination and play, adults make jokes or ignore, they focus on perfecting their bodies, they take jobs that help people with the secret belief they might save themselves. each character has a different coping mechanism when forced to actually look at death, and if it's bleak to see the ways they fail, ultimately shyamalan believes that we can not only accept our fate, but still choose to love, to enjoy small moments of beauty, to fight, to help each other, to build and create no matter how briefly we exist. he reserves contempt for those who think they are above death, who think their actions can allow them to escape, and - most fascinating of all - those who seek to separate themselves into observers, put a camera between them and the world, content to comment without engaging, living forever through their work. astounding, the way he uses camera and sound to craft the sensation of a dream where you run and run towards something that never gets closer, only stopping to pause for nightmares, most of which are left to the viewers to imagine for themselves. voices and the waves fade in and out, time always rushing in to knock you down and moving away before you can catch it, our bodies eventually dust that will slip through our hands like sand, and denial an impenetrable rock with unnavigable caves. the only way out is through.