Annihilation (2018) | Sci-Fi Saturdays

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You’re not going crazy, you’re just a bit sad. ‘Cause there’s a man in you, gnawing you, tearing you into two.

Annihilation. Utter destruction. This film offers a bleak look at the emotional and physical toll of interpersonal relationships and the insanity that comes from an encounter with the unexplained. It also reveals a probable type of alien encounter that would occur over bug-eyed monsters with laser guns descending on the planet.

First Impressions

The trailer presents a woman in some kind of sterile environment being asked to explain what she has seen. Her presumed husband had gone on a mission and disappeared. She grieved his loss. But then he mysteriously returns and is kept alive on life support. A scientist shows her a strange area of a swamp called the Shimmer, where mutated flora and fauna exist. Nothing seems to return from this place, except that something recently has. It looks like a cross between some crazy existential horror film and Alien. It’s Annihilation!

Presented below is the trailer for the film.

The Fiction of The Film

In a military installation, Lena (Natalie Portman), a cellular biology professor and former soldier, is being interviewed by Lomax (Benedict Wong) about a failed expedition into a quarantined area known as the Shimmer. Three years prior to these events, a meteorite crashed into a lighthouse in a nature preserve on the coast of Florida, creating a strange discoloration in the air that looked like the colors of a shimmering soap bubble. Bits of Lena’s present-day story are interspersed throughout her story. Over a year after her husband Kane (Oscar Isaac), an army sergeant working with Area X, disappeared on a secret expedition in the Shimmer, he reappears, claiming not to remember anything and falling ill. In the ambulance ride, Lena and Kane are grabbed by a clandestine group and taken to a secret location.

Lena awakens to meet Dr. Ventress (Jennifer Jason Leigh), a psychologist in charge of the excursions into the Shimmer. She tells Lena about this strange area that is continuing to grow. Lena meets three other military scientists stationed at the facility: Anya (Gina Rodriguez), Josie (Tess Thompson), and Cassie (Tuva Novotny). The three women, along with Dr. Ventress, will soon be venturing into the Shimmer in hopes of locating the lighthouse and discovering the meaning behind the anomaly. Lena asks to go with the women, but fails to mention that her husband was the sole survivor of the previous mission. Immediately upon entering the Shimmer, the group awakens with no memory of entering or setting up camp, having apparently been at this for four days. Their comms and compasses don’t work, and they become disoriented.

Hiking through the foliage, Lena notices a multitude of different blossoms and plants, but is awestruck by the fact that they all seem to stem from the same roots–an apparent biological impossibility. Josie is grabbed by something and pulled into the water, but the other four manage to get her to safety. A giant, mutated alligator comes at them, and they shoot it to death. Examining the body, they discover subtle mutations, such as extra rows of teeth, like a shark. Cassie provides background on why each character has signed up for a potential one-way mission. Anya is a recovering addict. Josie has practiced self-harm. Cassie lost a daughter to leukemia. Ventress has no one in her life, though later Lena discovers Ventress also suffers from cancer.

Coming upon an old command post, the women find a memory card left by the previous group showing Kane slicing into one of his men’s stomachs to reveal eel-like intestines swimming around. In a drained swimming pool, a soldier’s body is splayed on the wall, devolved into plant material. Cassie is startled and killed by a mutated bear, causing Josie and Anya to declare their interest in going back. Ventress is committed to reaching the lighthouse, and Lena agrees with her, if only that they are closer to the shore and a potential exit. In a nearby town, they discover the plants have grown into humanoid shapes. Josie hypothesizes that the Shimmer is refracting the radio and light waves, and it is doing the same thing to all the DNA inside the zone, like a prism. Lena checks her blood and sees evidence of a biological shift.

Anya cracks up, tying the other three up and looking to kill them, but is lured outside by Cassie’s cries for help. Unfortunately, Cassie is still dead, but the mutant bear has absorbed her vocal patterns during her death throes. The bear mauls Anya to death, and Josie manages to kill the beast, as the remaining women continue on their way. On the way out of town, Josie decides she doesn’t want to be remembered like Cassie in her death, so she takes off her shirt and wanders into a field of flower/people and becomes part of the landscape. Lena catches up with Ventress at the lighthouse, which is surrounded by fantastical crystalline trees. Inside, Lena discovers a video camera with the final moments of Kane on tape. He tells an off-screen person to find Lena, and then immolates himself with a phosphorus grenade. A doppelganger of Kane steps into frame.

Lena enters the tunnel carved by the meteorite. Inside, she finds Ventress, who is already far gone. The doctor vomits iridescent light, which turns into a light cloud that looks like a Mandelbulb. A drop of blood falls off Lena’s face and merges with the swirling, cloudy light, becoming an iridescent humanoid. The shape mirrors Lena’s moves throughout the lighthouse. Lena puts a grenade in its hands and detonates it, fleeing from the alien creature. The being burns, wandering back into the tunnel, setting everything on fire as it goes. The fire is refracted through the Shimmer, causing other things to burn, before finally just disappearing. Back in the interrogation, Lena finishes her story, telling the men that the creature didn’t want anything and wasn’t doing what it did for any reason. Lomax reveals that Kane’s illness stabilized when the Shimmer disappeared. Lena hugs Kane, neither sure that they’re really themselves, as their eyes take on a subtle shimmering effect.

“We are disintegrating! Our bodies as fast as our minds. Can’t you feel it?” – Dr. Ventress

History in the Making

For directors with acclaimed first releases, very rarely does their second outing rival their first. Annihilation is an exception to this and may even be a better film than Alex Garland’s first film, Ex Machina. Ex Machina was an incredible work of science-fiction, detailing the idea behind what makes artificial intelligence seem human. Annihilation goes bigger, deeper, and further in the ideology behind extraterrestrial life, human suffering, and self-destruction. Being that Garland wrote and directed both Ex Machina and Annihilation makes it seem as if he emerged from nowhere with two amazing stories. He had actually been the screenwriter of several films prior to these, including 28 Days Later, Sunshine, and Dredd. His follow-up film, Men, continues the odd idea of flora and fauna intermingling into something wholly new. Garland’s visual and metaphorical elements are incredibly strong and haunting, sticking with the viewer long after the final frames.

The story of Annihilation is not an original Alex Garland idea, however. It is based on a book of the same name by American author Jeff VanderMeer. Annihilation was the first novel in a three-part series, known as the Southern Reach series, named after the Agency that first discovers the Shimmer, known in the book (and referenced in the film) as Area X. Two subsequent titles, Authority and Acceptance, were released shortly after Annihilation, all publishing within seven months of one another. The story of the novel is similar to the story in the film, though Garland provides more characters and a different backstory than VanderMeer’s. Having detailed his script prior to the release of the other two books, Garland had no idea where the rest of the trilogy was headed. Surprisingly, several elements of his finished film echo elements from VanderMeer’s books. This adaptation is just another example of the refraction present in the film. Everything is just slightly different from what it should be.

Genre-fication

Annihilation begins like many sci-fi/horror films. The audience is brought in after the fact, during an interview with Lena, who explains what she knows, which is nothing. Then a flashback shows a meteorite striking a lighthouse. The imagery is reminiscent of The Blob or Predator, with an alien specimen being brought to Earth from elsewhere. From there, the core question that drives the characters, and invests the audience, is what is going on here? What is causing the Shimmer, and what has happened to Kane? The answer, as it turns out, is completely unsettling, as Annihilation performs a masterclass in Lovecraftian horror. After a year away from his wife, Kane suddenly returns, but immediately falls ill. To answer the question of his return, his wife sets off on a mission to get some answers, but one that seems as if it will end in tragedy. No one else has ever returned from the Shimmer. Could there be an alien virus inside? Whatever it is, something is causing the mutation of plants and animals. Is it also affecting the people inside?

Immediately after entering the Shimmer, an edit in the film occurs. It’s now the next morning (or is it?), and like the audience, the characters are not sure how they got here. They have set up camp, and the amount of rations left looks like they have been here for four days, with no memory of anything. The world inside becomes unsettling, as Lena notices multiple types of plants all growing from the same vine. Could it be radiation, or maybe they’re in a dream? The links to other existential horror films are all over Annihilation, as it channels elements of Pandorum, The Thing, Sphere, and The Mist, just a few examples. All these films deal with the protagonists investigating some weird and unexplained phenomenon, often alien, and having to discover a way to simply survive. The answer is a truly unsettling revelation that the alien presence is mutating the DNA of all plants and animals within the shimmer. Plants are not wholly flora, and animals and people are no longer fully themselves, either. The longer a person stays in Area X, the more unlike themselves they become. This loss of self is a horrific cinematic idea, and one that doesn’t have any easy conclusion. By the end of the film, the protagonists are either dead or they are physically no longer the people who started their journey.

Societal Commentary

The changes within the shimmer are caused by refraction. Refraction is the “action of distorting an image by viewing through a medium,” which is a visual element that Garner uses throughout the film. The first time that the audience sees Kane sitting at the table in Lena’s kitchen, his hand is behind a glass. The image of his fingers is refracted, appearing backwards. A final image of Lena reaching out to Kane also has them seen through a glass full of water. This change, or mutation, is seen in the plants and animals of the Shimmer. The DNA of every living thing is slowly morphing and mutating to become something else. Plants grow into the shape of humans. Animals take on characteristics of interspecies breeding, as with the alligator, which has two rows of teeth, like a shark. The humans begin to go insane from the process, unsure of what is real and what is not. The mutations of the Shimmer are a broad metaphor for cancer.

The meteorite can be seen as a foreign body invading the Earth to start this change, in much the same way some virus might infect a host body. Cells alter and mutate, deviating from their previous purpose, turning into a malignant mass that we call cancer. Annihilation’s protagonist, Lena, is put into this bizarre world as a woman of science. She knows her biology, but sees things behaving in a strange fashion, which allows her to question her sanity, but also the science. The film explores multiple discussions of cells dividing, either in the normal process or in a mutated way. Imagery of a cell dividing contrasts with the image of a strange white deer, with flowers growing from its antlers, suddenly dividing into a second identical creature. The whole process within the Shimmer contradicts the normal programming of cells, which are to maintain their purpose, supporting the overall structure of the organism, before eventually dying off.

The biological purposes of organisms are highlighted in the film by Dr. Ventress. She sees everything from a psychological, rather than a biological, standpoint. Ventress describes what she’s seeing in the Shimmer as self-destruction of everything. Something has changed the coding of the cells to destroy themselves rather than live. This also typifies all the characters entering the Shimmer. Each of the five women is going on a perceived suicide mission as a form of self-destruction. Cassie suffers from the pain of losing a child to leukemia (which is also a form of cancer). Anya suffers from addiction, something she must fight against daily. Josie cuts herself, not as a suicidal tendency, but to feel alive. Ventress is suffering from a form of cancer that will take her life sooner rather than later. And Lena is suffering from the pain of losing her husband. She wants answers, which is probably why she’s allowed to return, but her self-destruction has been going on for a while. A flashback shows an affair she was having with Daniel, a co-worker. It’s unclear about the timing, but it appears to be her way of getting the intimacy she cannot get from Kane, due to the secretive missions that keep him away. The other women all succumb to the Shimmer, but Lena is able to complete her self-destruction by killing herself, or at least a doppelganger that looks like her.

The Science in The Fiction

From the standpoint of most alien invasion films, Annihilation is an entirely different approach. There are no flying saucers and little green men (or xenomorphs) to contend with, but a possible sentient infection slowly spreading through the world. It’s more like Invasion of the Body Snatchers or The Blob than Predator or Independence Day. This may actually be the way that an alien presence would present itself to Earth. As with The Andromeda Strain, where an alien microbe arrives on Earth and kills those that come in contact with it, the mutagens from the meteorite in Annihilation create a similar effect. There’s no outright death involved with this alien, but the long-term effects of the Shimmer alter the original programming of biological cells to mutate and combine with other nearby cells. Plants and animals alike become mutated, combining elements of each other within themselves.

Any sentience that is part of this “invasion” seems contained within the lighthouse. Whatever entity exists absorbs Ventress’ corporeal being and, using a drop of blood from Lena, evolves, or refracts, into a doppelganger of the biologist. This was what happened to Kane. Somehow, the sentience created a duplicate of Oscar Isaac’s character, taking over for him and returning home. The Kane that returns is not the same Kane that left on the expedition. Lena escapes a similar fate by destroying her doppelganger, but a transformation within her has already occurred.  Harkening back to the metaphor of cancer, if the infection doesn’t kill the individual, the survivors are wholly changed by the events. Everyone becomes altered by illness and trauma, becoming a different person on the other side.

The Final Frontier

Annihilation‘s theme of self-destruction is presented in multiple ways. There’s the internal and self-defeating version as seen in the bad choices made by the characters. Lena’s extramarital affair and Josie’s self-harm are two examples. But the film goes further to show the duality of Kane and Lena existing as multiple versions of themselves. Kane ends up killing himself (literal self-destruction) while his double returns home to find Lena. There’s also some biblical parallel here as Cain slew his brother Abel in the book of Genesis, and here Kane dies as a result of his “brother” entering into the world.  This duality also shows up in the homogenization of the characters. Lena is seen staring at an infinity symbol tattoo on her arm in the beginning of the film but chronologically at the end of the story–when she’s being interviewed. This tattoo is revealed to belong to Anya’s body, with the Shimmer’s refraction blending it amongst multiple individuals. With this idea, maybe the other four women aren’t truly gone, and they exist within Lena in some fashion, having become blended with her.

Annihilation is a film that’s even better the second time. It’s so weird and out there that the first time through, the audience is only trying to make sense of what is going on. Once that astonishment has passed, viewers can look deeper into the film for meaning and explanation. After the first viewing, it seemed as if the infection of the Shimmer was now rearing itself back in the uninfected world. At least that’s what the shimmer in the eyes of Lena and Kane seems to indicate. After this last viewing, that doesn’t seem to be the case. The infection seems to have been eradicated with the destruction of Lena’s other self, and the shimmer in her and Kane’s eyes is only a manifestation of the changes that have occurred to them within the Shimmer. Kane has changed, having been replicated and replaced as a clone of himself, and Lena is altered by the mutagenic nature of the Shimmer. Overall, it’s a uniquely disturbing film that blends sci-fi, horror, nihilism, and Lovecraftian existentialism into a modern masterpiece.

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