March 23rd, 2019
Written by: Alex Garland, James VanderMeer
Starring: Natalie Portman, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Tessa Thompson
Budget: $40,000,000
Quote: "Then, as a psychologist, I think you're confusing suicide with self-destruction. Almost none of us commit suicide, and almost all of us self-destruct. In some way, in some part of our lives. We drink, or we smoke, we destabilize the good job... and a happy marriage. But these aren't decisions, they're... they're impulses."
Trivia: The snake tattoo that appears on Lena's forearm is not there before she enters the Shimmer. It also appears on the arm of Anya (Gina Rodriguez), as well as on the body of the soldier killed on the wall in the building they enter. The tattoo is a symbol of a snake eating itself, which ties into the film's theme of self-destruction.
Sometimes science fiction and horror are a perfect pairing. The almost endless expansion of possibilities and cerebral qualities that science fiction provides compliments the bleak, sinister, and macabre elements of human existence that horror highlights. H.P. Lovecraft capitalized on this nearly a century ago and filmmakers have been capitalizing on this since, from Kubrick's 2001 to Event Horizon. Annihilation is one of the newest entries into the "Science Fiction Horror" subgenre and while it was a box office flop that left many critics disappointed, I personally loved the film and felt it was both a uniquely beautiful film and had an engaging story. Beyond the highly celebrated visual effects, the film is also able to capture humanity on the micro and macro levels. The film is part exploration of the inner turmoils that a group of women live with and part inquiry into the frailty of the human species as a whole. Well acted, well directed, and uncompromising, Annihilation is a movie that forces the viewer to question both existence and reality.
The basic plot is as such: Lena (Natalie Portman) is a soldier turned molecular biologist whose husband returns after being on a military mission of a year. Upon his return, he quickly begins vomiting blood and the two are taken to some government facility where they are quarantined and Lena is questioned by guy's in hazmat suits. Eventually it is revealed that he entered an area which they are calling "the shimmering" with several other soldiers to investigate a meteor that landed through a lighthouse, but he was the only one to make it out alive. Lena volunteers to go with a group of four other women into the shimmering to try to solve its mysteries. While in there, they discover huge gaps in time, none of their navigation equipment works, and that the shimmering is refracting everything's DNA into everything else, causing extreme mutations and copies which become more severe the closer they get to the lighthouse. Very quickly, the psychology of the women begin to unravel as they fight for their own and mankind's survival.
First and foremost what can hardly be argued against is the beauty the filmmakers are able to create in the shimmer. The stunning visuals help to capture the wonder and mystery of the dreamlike atmosphere of the film. In this world, plants grow into human shapes, new vibrant life films streams, and everything seems to have a misty glow to it. At times I found myself lost in the beauty and uniqueness at the look of the film and forgot the story, similar to many of the characters. However, the film's beauty is also unnerving in that it so closely parallel's our reality, only that it is off kilter. Something is wrong. It's the same reaction that people have to humanistic faces that look very close to human faces, but not quite there. It's interesting, off putting, and at times terrifying.
The pacing of the film also helps to capture the viewer's attention. The film primarily focuses on the quieter moments and has long sections where it is building intrigue on part of the viewer. It's like a Pixies' song (only maybe inverse): QUIET, loud, QUIET. Annihilation takes a slow roll towards the terrors of the unknown. However, this slow roll is punctuated by some genuinely terrifying moments. At one point, three of the women are tied to chairs when a bear that has been mutated with the genetics of one of their dead friend's enters the room. Physically the bear resembles what one could imagine a zombie bear to look like with jaw bones showing and ribs sticking out. But what is most frightening is that the dead friend's face is protruding form the side of the bear's head and screaming. And the familiar voice continues to scream as the bear approaches the defenseless and bound women. I won't spoil how it ends...
Annihilation is not without its faults, whether intentional or unintentional. The characters lack any real development making it difficult to sympathize with their plight. Aside from Portman's character Lena, we have almost no backstory to the other four women other than a few brief mentions here and there. Lena's background is also flimsy other than we know her husband entered the shimmer where he lost his mind and while he was gone, Lena cheated on him with some married professor she works with. These criticisms have led a lot of reviewers to disregard the film, however, I found this just added to the mystery. The incomplete backstories and subtle hints that are given about characters just made the film more fascinating for me. It was like little clues the filmmakers left us that help explain the lives and fates of the characters and a statement about humanity as a whole.
SPOILERS: I want to briefly talk about the message of the film. Please do not read on if you haven't seen the film and do not want the ending spoiled. You've been warned.
At one point in the film, Jennifer Jason Leigh's character is talking to Lena and explains that almost none of us commit suicide but almost all of us self-destruct in one manner or another. This is the theme of the movie and connects directly to the movie's title. At the cellular level, our cells are programmed to destroy themselves. It is only those that don't that become cancerous and destroy the host. Lena, as a cellular biologist knew this more than anyone. As individuals, the film seems to argue, we are also programmed to destroy ourselves. Why do we cheat on the ones' we love destroying the lives we created? Why do we eat ourselves into health problems? Why do we drink and do drugs? Why do we worry and work ourselves into heart disease? There must be something, perhaps at the molecular level, driving us towards self-destruction.
Even simply entering the shimmer is an act of self destruction, having full knowledge that no one comes out of it alive. At the film's climax, Lena comes face to face with the entity (some life form that arrived to earth on a meteor) that has created the shimmer and we learn that it is probably an unknowing and uncaring blight that exists by devouring the genetics of the life it comes into contact with. Like the cancer cell that has no malicious intent in its refusal to die, too, this life form means no harm. Rather it is simply a cancerous existence that has happened through happenstance to land on our planet.
Finally, the film seems to be saying something about the illusory nature of life and love. In the end, Lena discovers that her husband killed himself in the shimmer and what came out was only a copy of her husband created by the entity. When she approaches the copy and it admits to this, she accepts him anyways. I understood this to be an acceptance of the materialism philosophy that argues that nothing exists except matter and its movements and modifications. This bleak but well reasoned philosophy would support the film's themes of self-destruction and the uncaring nature of existence. Love is an illusion. Life is a dream.
...what's your thoughts?
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