To annihilate something is to obliterate it; to cause something to cease existing. Such a finite word, such a fine word, don’t you think? The complete destruction of a thing. There is a menacing beauty in the complete erasure of a noun. This menacing beauty is captured in the enchanting work of Alex Garland (Ex Machina) in the newly released Annihilation. Adapted from the book of the same name, Annihilation is told to us in a disorienting non linear fashion. Lena’s husband has been gone for a year, Lena is in a clean room being interrogated and unable to remember things clearly, Lena explores a secret zone of national park that has been closed down due to the effects of a meteor. There is much that Lena (Natalie Portman) doesn’t know and the switching between time lines non chronologically makes for a perplexity on par with subject matter that is the cause for everything in Annihilation. The way that this movie and everything in it is shot makes for a dazzling and terrifying and smart film.
The dazzling:
The Shimmer is a biosphere like dome that is slowly expanding and enveloping the lands around a lighthouse which was hit by a meteor. The teams that go in to the Shimmer don’t return so no one has been able to gauge what goes on inside. We journey with an all female team of scientists to see what is on the other side. Three years have transpired since the initial impact and in that time the life inside the Shimmer has had time to grow and thrive in a beautifully alien way. Every shot of the environment inside somehow contains a rainbow whether in light or in flora and fauna. The scenery is at times scary and yet beautiful at the same time. There is a scene in a drained swimming pool that shows death and life intertwined so organically and you sit there thinking about how breathtaking what you are looking at is…and then you remind yourself what you are looking at…and its terrifying.
The terrifying:
The amount of times I realized that I was holding my breath was pretty high by the end of this film. “The monster” is so thoroughly portrayed and yet still unable to be understood. Crocodiles, bears, each other, and on and on…the tricks that this film play on your mind are never ending. One thing that I loved was that you would start to feel comfortable as an audience member, thinking that there was a definite genre path that a scene was taking and then all of a sudden something totally different would happen (again with the disorienting) and you would be left speechless or scared. Garland does not over explain Anything. This is one of the most well paced part one films that I feel like I’ve seen in a while. By the end we are left with as many questions as we had in the beginning, if not more. The enigma that is the Shimmer is so appropriately otherworldly and as we are taken deeper and deeper in we see an endless amount of possibilities that revolve around the very make up of life on Earth. Biology and DNA are used to explain terrifying sights, psychology is used to explain the terrifying behavior of humans under extreme circumstances, nature is used to show us how terrifying our lack of understanding is. All of these elements combined with the twisty turny track of the film are able to terrify while giving us a story that is so smart.
The smart:
As mentioned above, the pacing of this movie and the amount of information we are given is phenomenal. There was not a lot of clunky exposition and at times you just have to accept that there are some things you might not know. In my head throughout the film I kept thinking things like, “ya but what about…x…” and then the story would be moving on and you would just have to wonder about it. I think that that adds fuel to the terrifying aspect to the film too. In addition to the plot of the story, the way in which Garland directs and shows us the story is so thoughtful. There is a scene that is shot with the visual focus on the other side of a water glass. The image is distorted by the water. Tiny things like this are peppered throughout the whole of Annihilation tying in the theme of disorientation in every way possible. But what is good writing and amazing visuals without a great cast rounding things out? The expedition team that we follow is made of five women who are strong and smart and not led by any men. While the number of characters in the film as a whole is pretty small, only like three of them are men. The women carry and lead this film in a wonderfully strong way. They are smart and refreshing and pass the Bechdel test with flying colors.
There is so much more I want to say about Annihilation however I don’t know how to go further without giving any major spoilers and this is a film that really needs to be seen and not spoiled. I’ve heard that the book is pretty different from the film. I’ve definitely added the trilogy to my reading list (you can read more about the Southern Reach Trilogy here). Do yourself a favor: see this movie.
that ending though 