The internal horrors of a society as masochistic as this are externalized through the terror in the woods; just as the key romantic thread of the film is directly challenged by the characters' lack of autonomy, forced into submission by the only things they've known to be true.

Characters are framed through doorways or from behind objects; forcing people into areas of a shot they wouldn't usually be, indeed Shyamalan's camerawork is some of the best there has ever been in narrative filmmaking, and some of the most consistently interesting, if occasionally a little safe.

What I love most are the real concerns that haunt the corners of a very artificial film: the overhanging grief at a funeral or a night that two lovers spend apart, but most prominently (and sentimentally), The Village deals with characters who just can't shake the feeling that they belong in any society other than the one they live in.