... you can learn from:
Annihilation (2018)
Lena: Why did my husband volunteer for a suicide mission?Dr Ventress: Is that what you think we're doing? Committing suicide?Lena: You must have profiled him. You must have assessed him. He must have said something.Dr Ventress: So you're asking me as a psychologist?Lena: Yeah.Dr Ventress: 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. In fact, you're probably better equipped to explain this than I am.Lena: What does that mean?Dr Ventress: You're a biologist. Isn't the self-destruction coded into us? Programmed into each cell?
A happy 5 to Alex Garland's flawed I think but fascinating Annihilation, which is stuffed to the mutated gills with interesting ideas and visuals and performances -- I'm not entirely sure it all works, but it's more thrilling than 90% of the junk we're force-fed so I'll take it! I've watched the movie a few times over the past five years and there's always something new to glom onto. Although the bear, the goddamned nightmare bear -- that always works. Cocaine Bear wishes!
LOVE LOVE LOVE this movie! I occasionally watch the bear scene on YouTube, and it still terrifies me; the sound it makes is horrifying.
ReplyDeleteA great, underrated movie, if only for the visuals and the sound. Garland's movie Ex Machina is also terrific.
ReplyDeleteGarland is making some really interesting movies. I agree that Annihilation maybe didn’t quite add up but it captured the story it was based on perfectly, when I read it I thought it would be REALLY hard to film. Ex Machina was one of the best films of the year, for sure.
ReplyDeleteAnnihilation is basically a remake of John Carpenters The Thing from 1982. Sure there are differences, but overall it's the same story.
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