[movie/book] Annihilation - Southern Reach Trilogy

I can't speak for the movie, but I didn't see anything regarding feminism in the book series. The teams were one gender, and they never referred to each other by first name. I'll revisit this when I see the movie.
 
this film is fucking fantastic, seriously, it is gorgeous, creative, and incredibly thoughtful

prob only for people who like to think about their movies though, very slow paced, long shots, and no action

and funny thing is, with the five female leads, i was like, this is def gonna be about feminism, not that that would stop me from seeing a movie

and gender is not even fucking commented on in the movie except for one line - it's like, this is exactly what feminism is *supposed* to achieve - women doing the same shit as men, without it being *about* the fact that it's women doing the same shit as men
 
I remember a time when you weren't beat over the head with it and didn't have any issue with strong female leads in movies.

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1986 was way ahead of its time.
 
Alien was written with no genders assigned to any character, so technically Ripley wasn't written as a female character.
 
He's referring to Aliens (1986) the James Cameron motherhood/feminism one, but you knew that. Nor does that take anything away from his point.
 
Vasquez was an awesome character. Wouldn't mind to see her in something like The Expendables or similar.
 
Sorry but there's nothing special about this flick. It's The Thing, minus the cool special effects of the 80's remake.

man bear pig was just meh, duct tape man was pretty disappointing.

two and 1/2 out of five stars.

the 1/2 star is for not going full blair witch with the camera.
 
The Magical Zoo said:
He's referring to Aliens (1986) the James Cameron motherhood/feminism one, but you knew that. Nor does that take anything away from his point.
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Duh, but her character did not originate in Aliens, and she was seen as a strong female character from the start.
 
Yeah, they thought it was a huge risk to have a female lead when Alien came out. I don't recall anyone even commenting on it or making a big deal about it, probably because most people couldn't get past the chestburster scene. Stories of people in the theater running to the exit are probably true.

Unlike this movie where people would be running to the exit out of boredom.
 
Tom Skerritt was top billed, and it was primarily considered an ensemble film.
 
Alien definitely was promoted with minimal advertising to keep all of its "surprises" hidden before actual screening, to include the fact that a female from the apparent ensemble cast would win out in the end. The showings (I saw it multiple times) I went to definitely were shocked when Dallas, the captain, was killed and left everyone wondering who was gonna save the day (as we were so conditioned back in the day that a male lead would always be the hero).
 
thing is, it IS an ensemble film. not knowing how the final 30 minutes are going to go down, you wouldn't point to ripley as the main character. she survives but she certainly doesn't save the day.
 
Annihilation - great cast, great visuals, great soundtrack (except for the dubstep alien at the end)

I would have preferred if it was more gory/scary and less intellectual/headfucky though

still an enjoyable watch
 
bowl of blood said:
this film is fucking fantastic, seriously, it is gorgeous, creative, and incredibly thoughtful

prob only for people who like to think about their movies though, very slow paced, long shots, and no action
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what is thoughtful about this film?

what question is asked or answered? what meaning is there? what scene or character triggers what kind of emotion?
 
my "the thing" comparison was about the one specific scene where they rip open and kill their buddy to find an alien inside them. the suspense/beats of the scene are really similar

for me, the movie as a whole is most similar to apocalypse now's trip down the river. i think it gets lost in the meaning/questions its trying to convey and would like to see someone who thought those were strong components of the film try and explain them
 
1teaminlondon said:
what is thoughtful about this film?

what question is asked or answered? what meaning is there? what scene or character triggers what kind of emotion?
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part of what makes a good art film is that it presents interesting pieces that all fit perfectly together, but doesn't tell you how to respond to them. this can't help but sound pretentious, because it would take a longer post than this to fully explain any one thing. i don't really want to write that but i guess maybe i would. anyway, some pieces:

the subject: confronting death and what that means to the identity. death in a literal sense and death of the self. it is about the self-destructive nature of our actions, our inability to turn away from death, and our inability to understand or reason with it. all of this is mentioned explicitly in dialogue, particularly by ventress, from the definition of senescence to the multiple mentions of cancer, "self-destruction", and all the main characters wanting to die. (i actually thought the dialogue was bludgeoning and unnecessary, and was very happy when it stopped)

the shimmer: a literal cancerous growth upon the world. the shimmer is a state of reality emanating from the meteorite, ever growing. it has no purpose, no will, no consciousness, no guidance. it simply grows, and the way it does that is by taking whatever it touches and twisting it together, cloning without knowing how to "correctly" do so. sometimes the results are beautiful, sometimes hideous. lena is introduced giving a lecture about cancer. this is not a coincidence. she (the movie) is telling us how the shimmer works. it isn't explained any further because there's nothing further to explain. like a tumor, that's just what it does.

the journey: it's never quite clear what this is meant to accomplish, because the characters themselves don't know. they each have a feeling, at varying levels of explicitness, that there is something they need to do (die), and that it lies within the shimmer (the state of dying). they believe they are ready to confront the unknown (afterlife), and acknowledge that they probably won't come back (death), and that if they don't go now, it will catch up to them later anyway (age, sickness, accident).

the characters: i'm not going to do them all, but each character has a specific piece of baggage that is reflected in her fate. the woman whose daughter died says that she died with her - after lena discovers her corpse, she glimpses two strange animals resembling a doe and fawn. josie is depressed and self-harms as a way to feel alive. from the wounds in her arms, plants begin to sprout, and she realizes she has found what she desires and needs go no further. ventress has cancer, and is found at the core of the infection, where she becomes a living tumor.

the climax: a non-verbal culmination of the sheer terror of being replaced by something that is made from us, but not us. the grueling process of being annihilated. lena heroically reverses her fate and survives by lasering the tumor, but she is forever changed. (i like to think fire worked to kill it because duplicating fire just makes... more fire)

theme: death is inescapable and transforms the identities of even the strongest of will, yet each act of destruction is in turn an act of creation. this transformation can be horrifying, it can be beautiful, it can be peaceful, it can be determined. nothing escapes annihilation, but nothing is ever truly annihilated.

PEACE

ps apocalypse now is a better comparison than the thing, because this is obv a heart of darkness journey. also, to the lighthouse, as loudly said like five times in dialogue.

psps altho thing is fair too, i mean body horror in general is about the terrifying nature of finding oneself being transformed into something else. one way to think of annihilation is that it takes body horror and applies it to an entire environment - plants, bears, dna, light.
 
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yea i get the characters are all flawed and connected to death in a way, along with all the emphasis on cell division and cancer and what have you. there are alot of pieces in the film - i just dont think they fit together in any meaningful way.

confronting death and what that means to the identity. death in a literal sense and death of the self. it is about the self-destructive nature of our actions, our inability to turn away from death, and our inability to understand or reason with it.
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lena - the protagonist - struggles to accept death and has her identity defined by it. okay good points there, i'm with ya so far. is there an inability to understand or reason with death? ehhh the whole cell division/mutation thing was pretty straight forward and understandable, characters quite clearly and explicitly die, and portman seems to have some kind of intelligible interaction with "death" at the end where she reasons a way out, back to life. if the movie truly emphasized struggling with the acceptance of death and/or being defined by it, then the 3rd act should reflect that. instead she has a weird clone fight, burns the lighthouse down, makes it home unscathed, and even gets her dead husband back - the hell? the 3rd act needed something that binded garland's pieces together into some kind of coherent whole. something like in accepting death lena + her husband were somehow reborn, they embraced death and found peace, she fought death till the very end and was totally consumed+went mad. i feel like theres plenty of options. for me, garland got lost on his acid trip through "the shimmer" and never found his audience a way back.

the climax: a non-verbal culmination of the sheer terror of being replaced by something that is made from us, but not us. the grueling process of being annihilated. lena heroically reverses her fate and survives by lasering the tumor, but she is forever changed.
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if the central theme/message is "annihiliation comes for us all and changes us/everything forever" then what the hell happened for the other 88 minutes of the movie. why the exotic colors and super deer and talking bear. why the secret base and the military and the suicidal girl power squad. were any of those things necessary to the plot or message? it's a narrative that reaches for something that it never fully grasps

death is inescapable and transforms the identities of even the strongest of will, yet each act of destruction is in turn an act of creation. this transformation can be horrifying, it can be beautiful, it can be peaceful, it can be determined. nothing escapes annihilation, but nothing is ever truly annihilated.
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everything that enters the shimmer succumbs to death and transformation except lena - why? she enters as a widow overcome by grief, transforms into a willing murderer motivated by grief, and exits as a victorious conqueror who defeated "annihilation" and brought her dead husband back to life. HUH? does that mean she became death and took its powers? i actually kinda like that and maybe that's what the final scene should've been

anyways i appreciate your effort, blood bowl. if you want to a read a professionally written response, try checking out Annihilation FILM CRIT HULK! HULK BLOG! - which i mostly disagreed with but still really respect the piece & author
 
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