The art of criticism is a landscape fraught with harrowing pitfalls; and the critic must therefore possess the daring skills of legendary explorers combined with a near transcendental disconnection of the ego.  This having been said, I believe that the heart of critique is more an event of synchronicity than one of rational thought. All that has gone before you in your life, be it nature or nurture, comes in to play.

Accordingly, here are the synchronous events leading up to my viewing of M. Night Shyamalan's newest cinematic offering, Lady in the Water.

My recent move to Sedona, Arizona had been activated in response to numerous signs and events that conspired to bring me here at this exact point in time.  My internal compass, in other words, pointed me towards Sedona, and I followed its magnetic course knowing that it was a necessary step towards fulfilling my life's purpose.

Life's purpose. A phrase which resonates strongly within the very cellular structure of all that lives. Most of us spend our lives seeking its embrace, with very few of us ever coming to experience its actuality; but we are all pre-programmed, it seems, with an incontrovertible imperative to achieve it.

LADY IN THE WATER’ - Paul Giamatti tries to save a mysterious woman, Bryce Dallas Howard, in the thriller “Lady in the Water.” CNS Photo courtesy of Frank Masi.

As I drove to the screening of Lady in the Water these thoughts reverberated in my head, and, who knows why, I found myself singing two songs by Sean Lennon's extraordinary 1990's band Cibo Matto;

"I want certain  words more than a thousand flowers,"

"Can't find the spoon that we once had."

For some reason these two songs were grafted upon my brain like a musical tissue sample. I had no choice but to sing them through as, apparently, nothing else would be allowed vocal egress until these compositions were performed.

With my life's purpose having been pondered and Cibo Matto's songs having been sung, I stepped into the cinema for the show.

Lady in the Water is a fairy tale, issuing from the depths of an ancient collective consciousness. In days long past the people of the Blue World, that of Earth's waters, were in regular contact with the denizens of dry land. Those of the Blue World acted as spiritual and creative muses to those of Terra Firma.

But, alas, as is the common thread in most stories of man kind, materialistic desires served to separate the land dwellers from their inspirational aquatic counterparts. Consequently, those of the land forget those of the waters as they fell into a cycle of war and destruction.

Enter the loophole, and luckily for us materialistic humans, there is always a loophole.

The people of the Blue World did not forget us as we forgot them. In their love for us they continued to send the periodic emissary to offer inspiration and allow us an opportunity to return to our original state of grace; The Lady in the Water being said ambassador.

From the very first moments of viewing, the outstanding direction blended with an expertly tailored script not only brought each character starkly to life but achieved the rare feat of securing each character in to individual chambers of the heart. There is not one character in this film that does not fail to resonate in some deeply personal way.

I eventually lost count of the amount of times I found my hair standing on end confronted with the fact that innumerable aspects of this film seemed to have been directly extracted from my own stream of consciousness. And in attending to the reaction of my fellow theater goers, I was not alone in this experience.

The audience began to laugh as one creature, and there was a plentitude of these moments to be enjoyed. We began conversing with each other, at first quietly vocalizing our guesses involving the next plot turn. But soon we were turning to one and other, as long lost friends, sharing our insights and expressing joy over the beautifully crafted nuances of this film.

As the film closed, we all joined in a round of applause seldom heard in the movie theater, gazing at each other as the lights came up, knowing that this remarkable film had, for the past one hundred and eleven minutes, served to unite us in some deeply gratifying spiritual space. We left the theater feeling refreshed and renewed, one and all, in the certainly of that undeniable life's purpose. We would all go our separate ways, I knew in my heart (and also because I asked the audience members upon their leaving), with those bonds of purpose restored.

What an undeniable event of synchronicity Lady in the Water turned out to be for me. I, of course, give it my highest recommendation in hopes that others will likewise experience the full effect of its cinematic alchemy.

Oh, and lest I forget, as if there could be any doubt, there were only two songs featured within Lady in the Water.  Those being, of course, "Flowers" and "Spoon" by Cibo Matto.

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A.M. Melfa recently moved to Sedona, AZ from Northern California.

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