2018's Annihilation shares many similarities with the earlier Arrival. For example, they are all adapted from the award-winning novels of the Nebula Award, Arrival is adapted from The Story of Your Life by Chinese American writer Jiang Fengnan, and Annihilation is adapted from The Lost South Territory, by Jie Jie. VanderMeer won the Nebula Award in 2014 with this trilogy, and he was defeated by Liu Cixin's "Three-Body Problem"; another example, both films tend to be delicate, soothing, mournful and sinister rhythm and rhythm. Temperament, there are almost no bloody and fierce fighting scenes; another example, both have obvious Cthulhu elements, perhaps it is this point that wins the favor of Western judges, and makes "The Forgotten South" better. "Three Body" is one of the best.
Let's talk about what "Cthulhu" is. In short, it is an overhead mythological system created by Lovecraft, known as the "Father of Cthulhu", through a series of novels. With the passage of time and the improvement of many writers after that, "Cthulhu" has gradually evolved from one of the evil gods to the spokesperson of the entire ancient god system. The core of this myth is that they once ruled the universe with absolute power, fell into a long slumber for some reason, but will return and rule everything again. It is full of evil, horror, madness and indescribable truth that human beings are insignificant in the face of the huge species and the vast universe. Not only in the field of literature, but many sci-fi films also draw on the elements of Cthulhu, and the appearance of huge unknown creatures or octopus-like tentacles can be said to be Lovecraft's disciples. Of course, the most perfect successor is the "Alien" series.
Lovecraft said in "The Call of Cthulhu": "Humans live on an island called ignorance in the dark ocean. This ocean is vast and contains endless secrets, but we do not You should sail too far and explore too deeply." In the final analysis, it is best for humans not to provoke the unknown, and it is easy to be curious and kill the cat. In "Arrival" and "Annihilation", humans just played the role of "cats". Whether it is the spaceship that fell from the sky in the former, or the secret space formed by the falling of meteorites in the latter, humans sent expeditions to decrypt. The difference is that the aliens in "Arrival" are here to ask for help, while the aliens in "annihilation" have no clear purpose, maybe a conscious invasion, maybe just instinct, more like Lovecraft It is especially the cosmology that "heaven and earth are not benevolent, and all things are dogs".
In fact, the difference between this film and the original is quite large. Director Alex Garland had just finished reading the first part of the novel and he wanted to make it into a movie. The author, VanderMeer, advised him to wait until the rest of the novel was finished before filming. I didn't expect Garland to respond aggressively. That's enough, I make up the rest myself. Therefore, in terms of plot and characters, the film has made a lot of changes to the novel, especially the characters and occupations of the protagonist couple are different from the novel. In addition, the movie breaks the timeline of the original book and adopts a non-linear narrative structure. Multiple timelines alternate and echo each other, and the beginning of the flashback adds suspense and mystery. From the beginning of the interrogation of Lena, let the audience enter the story with questions, and all the plots that happened after that are from Lena's own expression, there is no supporting evidence, which makes people feel more and more confusing.
Compared to the massive subtraction made on the story, the director has visually maximized the "flash" world described in the novel, so that "annihilation" is probably one of the most imaginative films I have ever seen. . The film's design for the "shine" world combines the colors of the rainbow with the qualities of William Turner's landscape paintings, showing a soap bubble or gasoline floating on the water. And the scene inside is even more beautiful and eerie. It is a world where everything from light to radio signals to the DNA of all living things is refracted. So there are colorful flowers, trees covered with crystals, plants that grow into human form, white deer blooming on their horns, crocodiles with shark-like teeth, and skeleton bears who speak human words. , the result of variation.
And this is exactly how alien life "invades" Earth. Why put the quotation marks? The aliens in the film do not have embodied life forms (of course, the "flash" world that gradually erodes the earth can also be regarded as some kind of biological weapon), they use the energy body to change the DNA of the creatures within the boundary, In the end, copying or even replacing human entities, as mentioned above, may be just a kind of instinct of life. This invisible "invasion" method has a similar relationship with the settings in "Outer Magic Flower", "Monster" and "Parasitic Beast". Similarities and differences. At the end of the film, the male protagonist can be sure that it is a replica, while the female protagonist is relatively open whether it is the original or the replica. However, various hints indicate that even if the heroine is not a clone, she is on the way to a clone. So far, no matter whether the invasion base (lighthouse) is burned down or not, the alien life has successfully achieved the physical and spiritual connection of human couples, and an annihilation of the earth has officially begun.
The term "spirit" here may be a bit cryptic, because it seems that even the purely physical DNA refraction is not something that humans can resist. But like Arrival, Annihilation has philosophical and humanistic tendencies in its themes. The former discusses the diversity of ways of thinking and "non-zero-sum games", while the latter explores the diversity of life styles and "destruction and rebirth". The "Ouroboros" tattoo originating from ancient Greece appears many times in the film. It is very common in religion, mythology, and alchemy, representing "infinity" and "cycle". The Ouroboros symbol in Annihilation is the embodiment of the concept of a cosmic cycle, a cycle of construction and destruction, destruction and rebirth. In this "flash" world, death is only an appearance, and perhaps the noumenon has merged with animals, plants, and even time and space to become another form of life.
Look at the five female characters created in the film, all of whom have experienced or are experiencing self-"annihilation" in their lives. The protagonist, Lena, had an extramarital affair with her colleague because she had been with her husband Kane less and more. Kane knew it well, and Lena also understood that her husband knew about it, and felt even more apologetic. Although the two maintain the apparent stability of their marriage, their relationship is heading for destruction (Kane committed suicide in the lighthouse as a member of the previous expedition, emotional despair is the main reason). Lena joins the expedition not only to find the cause of her husband's death (she didn't know he had turned into a clone), but also for inner redemption. For the other four women, one had cancer, one had bereaved a daughter, one had been addicted to drugs, and one had psychological problems. Thus, for these five self-destructive women, this exploration journey is also a journey of destruction and rebirth. The end of the film ends with the male and female protagonists looking at each other and hugging each other, indicating that the reborn lovers are tightly connected again.
Finally, two trends in the sci-fi genre. One is the changing image of female characters in science fiction movies. In the original sci-fi films, women were often evil creatures (such as "Metropolis", "Bride of Frankenstein" in the 1920s and 1930s) or objects of male protection (such as "King Kong"); by the 1960s and 1970s, With the rise of female consciousness, there are many female scientists and female warriors in sci-fi films. The most representative character is Ripley, the "Space Heroine" in the "Alien" series, who acts as a neutral image. After the new century, the female image has entered a new stage, becoming more independent, or showing a kind of de-gendered ambiguity, such as in "She", "Super Physique", "Ex Machina" " and other films, it is no longer just the gender issue, but the contradiction between human and artificial intelligence, and even in "annihilation" it is the boundary between human and non-human. It is foreseeable that this trend will become more and more obvious in future science fiction works.
Another trend is changes in alien civilizations' attitudes toward Earth and their patterns of invasion. In the years from the post-Cold War period to the turn of the century, human beings generally have a sense of crisis for their own and territorial security, which is reflected in the narrative of the film to brave and tenaciously resist alien invaders. The most representative works are "independence Day". With today's global integration, under the international relations that pay attention to communication, exchange, cooperation, and win-win, the invasion mode of alien civilization is also more replaced by the situation shown in "Arrival" and "annihilation". The aliens in "Arrival" expressed a desire for friendship and mutual assistance, and successfully reached a non-zero-sum game (for the film review, see "Arrival": please bring me a heptapod ). And the aliens in "annihilation" did not use the means of destroying the world and bloody massacres, but achieved the purpose of peaceful evolution by refracting DNA.
It can be seen from this that even if science fiction films are separated from real life to a certain extent, they still explore fundamental issues such as human existence, development, and value system at the core. survival motif. So, how should we look at the gradual evolution from high-tech military invasion to genetic modification or asking for help? As far as the alien invasion mode in "annihilation" is concerned, are aliens transforming us, or we assimilate aliens, or is it a win-win situation? It makes us think further. In any case, the footsteps of human introspection can never be stopped.
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