I remember when Signs first arrived in theaters several summers ago. I went to see it with a few friends, eagerly anticipating M. Night Shyamalan's third major Hollywood film. Both The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable had impressed me, and seeing such an adept, young filmmaker tackle a good old-fashioned alien movie was very exciting to me.The film, starring Mel Gibson (We Were Soldiers) and Joaquin Phoenix (The Village), is the story of a lonely farming family in Pennsylvania which struggles to understand why a massive crop circle appeared in their cornfield overnight.

I vividly recall how well Shyamalan generates suspense in the film. The opening titles use simple text dramatically written inside a circular cool-blue halo. They fade in and out quickly, always in rhythm. First one title, then the next, then-appearing on the screen only slightly faster than its predecessors-yet another. This slight acceleration is hard to notice, but it generates a mood of increasing urgency that continues to unfold throughout the film.

Shyamalan is a very careful visual filmmaker. More so than most of today's filmmakers, he uses the camera as a tool to influence his audience's emotions and not simply to create a narrative.

Although the DVD release of Signs does not contain a running commentary by the director (a feature I always look for from directors I admire), it does come packed with numerous forms of fascinating material that shed light on the entire creative process behind the film and its maker.

Like many DVDs these days, Signs contains a feature-length documentary on the making of the film. Unlike most of these, however, this documentary dwells on the creative process behind the film, especially on Shyamalan's thought process and on-set methodology.

The heart of the documentary finds Shyamalan spending over 20 minutes dissecting and discussing the film in a commentary that follows the course of the film without dragging all the way through it. This feature-and the interviews that surround it-shed a great deal of light on the film, offering a new perspective.

Originally, I felt that the film's ending-generally described as a cheap cop-out-was a pointed attack by Shyamalan on audience expectations for "Hollywood endings." By providing a really disappointing "Hollywood ending," I thought Shyamalan was trying to reveal the true purpose of the film: an experiment in suspense. Tension can only build as long as its source is not resolved. If the film was meant as an experiment in tension, then Shyamalan is right to avoid an ending as long as he can.

But the DVD documentary reveals that, for Shyamalan, the film had a very different purpose. It was not merely an experiment in suspense. It also contains a thematically significant story.

Though disappointed that my theory did not stand, I felt intrigued by the documentary, as hidden beneath the interviews and commentary were clues revealing the reason for the film's shaky ending. During his commentary, Shyamalan speaks of his aversion to digital effects. The ending, the most digitally-saturated section of the film, flows so poorly, I suspect, because of Shyamalan's discomfort with the style and technique of filming for effects. The documentary spends some time exploring the film's digital effects, and, despite its efforts to portray Shyamalan as a capable CGI director, he seems to swim through the commentary's discussion of such sequences like a kid who just popped his inner tube.

Although it attempts to gloss over the film's faults, the documentary still stands out as a particularly honest, self-aware tie-in to the film.

Other features on the DVD are considerably shorter and less dramatic. There is a storyboard-to-film comparison which allows the viewer to watch the original scenes or storyboards with only music, sound effects (without dialogue) or the film's full sound playing behind them. It allows you to familiarize yourself with the effects of sound and music on a film.

If you buy this DVD, give the documentary a look. It paints a very interesting portrait of Shyamalan, Signs and the interactions of a young, somewhat new filmmaker with the massive infrastructure of a Hollywood film.