It's hard for me to solidly categorize exactly what the film Annihilation was. I know it is some things. It was definitely a horror in that there were moments where things were horrifying. Perhaps not because it was so much scary but because it was disturbing on multiple levels.
Towards the beginning and throughout the movie, I felt as if I was seeing a real live fairy tale come to life within the confines of fiction. It had all the makings of a fairy tale. You had humans going into a place located on earth where magic seemed to prevail. But then... all of it was still explained through science. I still honestly felt like I was seeing a fairyland.
Was it a science fiction? I think so. It provided me with an extremely clear explanation of an outer space origin. This thing came from space. It landed here, and provided the story with... an alien. That clearly marks this story as not only a science fiction... but also a traditional one.
So... Annihilation is clearly a trinity of genres. It is a science fiction, horror, fairy tale set in the modern era. It accomplished this feat flawlessly. It was believable, and its believability made it as terrifying as it was ambient.
But what really is this movie about? My conundrum is this: The whole movie is it's own spoiler. Every single part of this movie was crucial to understanding what it was about. To reveal one part is to give out something akin to a spoiler. But wait. I can still give you a premise, and that is precisely what I will do.
A meteor strikes earth. It produces an ever expanding field that nobody seems to come out of. If it keeps on expanding, it will eventually encompass the entire planet. That's all you need to know. Watch this movie. Annihilation is extremely well made and not at all hard to understand. A brilliant experience from beginning to end, and most importantly to me: It is a fairy tale.
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The world was being turned into a fairy land. Like in lore, once you're in a realm of the fairies, you're changed forever. The fairies in this tale were things normal made strange by an alien source. Even the people were other than human, when changed. On a spiritual note, I believe this story is an unintentional parable. It is like Creation being effected by the Strangeness that made our universe imperfect. Like in the movie, the strangeness was simply being itself, unaware of its effect on things till it became a person. Unlike in this movie, the protagonist flicked his blood into the strangeness deliberately, to see what came of it. His Son was born of the daring experiment. Unlike the protagonist in the movie, this protagonist made his hybrid double his link to the strangeness. They became related through this hybrid double.
ReplyDeleteAnd it was certainly not happy to suddenly have feelings and thoughts! God's mean.
DeleteI recommend this movie, It was interesting in its concept and very artful in its presentation. I agree it's very hard to talk about without spoiling anything. The believability of the whole situation was very powerful indeed.
ReplyDeleteThey did a good job taking what would normally seem like art for art sake and pitching it to you in a realistic way.
DeleteBy not falling neatly into a genre, the story can appeal to many different types of viewers. What is important is to get people's attention. Then, you can draw them in.
ReplyDeleteThis wasn't a blog about marketing theory, Don.
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