On Tuesday, I mentioned the Avatar: The Last Airbender movie (as one that should suffer damnatio memoriae). M. Night Shyamalan is to blame (no doubt along with a lot of studio-based decisions) for that monstrosity). And thus the post got me thinking about Shyamalan. I only recently learned about the Kishōtenketsu narrative structure and suddenly Shyamalan’s consistent plot twists made more sense to me.
The term Kishōtenketsu comes from the stages of the narrative:
- Ki: introduction
- Shō: development
- Ten: the (plot) twist
- Ketsu: Conclusion
This four-part structure differs from traditional Western plot structures, which tends to be conflict-oriented. Kishōtenketsu, on the other hand, centers around the twist (Ten), which not confrontation but rather a surprise which reorients audience understanding of meaning of story. Much like Shyamalan does in his movies.
When I first saw The Sixth Sense, I loved it. Then after awhile, I was put off a bit about how all his films (at that point) seemed to have a twist. While I have no idea if Shyamalan is trying to work in the Kishōtenketsu tradition, knowing about it makes me (ironically) look at his works in a different light.
Ramblings 