Post by klep on Sept 27, 2021 16:39:17 GMT -6
MOVIE OF THE WEEK for 9/27: Annihilation
TRANSITIONS WEEK!
Note: This week's essay was graciously provided by a guest contributor.
When we go to a new place, do we change it, or does it change us? Beyond the terrifying animals and the uncanny floral patterns, that's the question that Garland truly grapples with in Annihilation. The question of whether the Shimmer is changing the team, or the team is changing the Shimmer, starts with the moment they wake up in the forest with no memory of how they arrived at that point, and echoes throughout.
What makes the question important? After all, for much of the movie, it's clear that whichever direction the change is happening in (and there's certainly the case that it's happening in both directions, but more on that later) it's clear that the humans have no ability to really affect it. The realization of the change itself causes panic, in Thorensen more than anyone else, but the point can be raised that the transformation will happen anyway, so why try to determine anything beyond that? It does seem like a fool's errand, after all.
But it's not. Affecting the change isn't really the goal; knowing that the change is happening can determine how people react to it. In her final moments, Radek says “Ventress wants to face it, you [Lena] want to fight it, but I don't think I want either of those things.” It's a crucial scene in the cinema, because Radek is the first person in the whole team who takes the transformation in her own terms, making an active choice about her role in it.
Annihilation does an excellent job of capturing what it's like to go to a new place and feel yourself changed by it. This experience, despite the presence of things like grotesque bears that sets the Shimmer apart, is a truly universal human experience. Because staying in a different place for an extended period of time truly does change a person. It could be something as small as getting better used to a certain temperature, or something like developing different taste in food, or something bigger like developing different social skills or different political opinions. What happens in the Shimmer can be seen as a version of this very thing. And like in the Shimmer, nobody really has a way to affect whether the change happens or not. Sure, the change can be resisted, but for how long?
Of course, how much can one person change before they're not the same person anymore? Kane and Lena both being unsure of whether they're Kane or Lena at the end is very telling. On one level, the reading that they're not sure if they're the human version or the alien version is a valid and explicit reading. But looked at another way, it could also be how the two of them communicate that they've both changed so much they may not be the same person as they were before. As if they've been transformed, their old selves annihilated.
Lena's final struggle with the alien entity looks different in this light as well. It's a struggle with who she might become if she stays in the Shimmer too long, like she's looking at a mirror version of herself that's her, but not her. In the same way that Radek decides to accept the transformation, Lena makes a decision not to accept it, to not become the person she foresees herself becoming. But even that is a change in and of itself, just a different kind of change than what would've happened if she had gone along with it. It's when the characters try to fight undergoing any kind of change at all that they perish.
Of course, the Shimmer doesn't have to be a place.Watching four people navigating uncertain terrain in isolation can't help but bring to mind the pandemic, and how going through it has also changed so many people. Traumatic events changing people is not a new concept, and it's made even more stark by Radek's observation about Sheppard, as she thinks about how she'd feel if her dying and in pain was the only part of her that survived, the way it did for Sheppard. And in that sense, it's a reflection of what happens to someone unwilling to change at all; they perish, and the key memory of them that remains is how they perished.
In the end, Annihilation doesn't provide any easy answers to its questions. Which is fitting, because there are no easy answers to the questions of change and transformation. There are just choices to be made, and looked back on, perhaps in regret, perhaps in relief.
OUR NEXT MOVIE OF THE WEEK or 10/4: A Touch of Zen
ALWAYS THE BRIDESMAID WEEK!
Next week we're finally catching up with King Hu's legendary wuxia film A Touch of Zen. Be sure to join us for our discussion on Monday of this film, available on the Criterion Channel and for rent at the usual places.
NEXT PICTURE SHOW PODCAST for 9/28: Hard Eight
The podcast kicks off a pairing about gamblers getting in over their heads with Paul Thomas Anderson's Hard Eight. Join us Wednesday for our discussion of this film, available on Prime Video and kanopy and for rent at the usual places.
TRANSITIONS WEEK!
Note: This week's essay was graciously provided by a guest contributor.
When we go to a new place, do we change it, or does it change us? Beyond the terrifying animals and the uncanny floral patterns, that's the question that Garland truly grapples with in Annihilation. The question of whether the Shimmer is changing the team, or the team is changing the Shimmer, starts with the moment they wake up in the forest with no memory of how they arrived at that point, and echoes throughout.
What makes the question important? After all, for much of the movie, it's clear that whichever direction the change is happening in (and there's certainly the case that it's happening in both directions, but more on that later) it's clear that the humans have no ability to really affect it. The realization of the change itself causes panic, in Thorensen more than anyone else, but the point can be raised that the transformation will happen anyway, so why try to determine anything beyond that? It does seem like a fool's errand, after all.
But it's not. Affecting the change isn't really the goal; knowing that the change is happening can determine how people react to it. In her final moments, Radek says “Ventress wants to face it, you [Lena] want to fight it, but I don't think I want either of those things.” It's a crucial scene in the cinema, because Radek is the first person in the whole team who takes the transformation in her own terms, making an active choice about her role in it.
Annihilation does an excellent job of capturing what it's like to go to a new place and feel yourself changed by it. This experience, despite the presence of things like grotesque bears that sets the Shimmer apart, is a truly universal human experience. Because staying in a different place for an extended period of time truly does change a person. It could be something as small as getting better used to a certain temperature, or something like developing different taste in food, or something bigger like developing different social skills or different political opinions. What happens in the Shimmer can be seen as a version of this very thing. And like in the Shimmer, nobody really has a way to affect whether the change happens or not. Sure, the change can be resisted, but for how long?
Of course, how much can one person change before they're not the same person anymore? Kane and Lena both being unsure of whether they're Kane or Lena at the end is very telling. On one level, the reading that they're not sure if they're the human version or the alien version is a valid and explicit reading. But looked at another way, it could also be how the two of them communicate that they've both changed so much they may not be the same person as they were before. As if they've been transformed, their old selves annihilated.
Lena's final struggle with the alien entity looks different in this light as well. It's a struggle with who she might become if she stays in the Shimmer too long, like she's looking at a mirror version of herself that's her, but not her. In the same way that Radek decides to accept the transformation, Lena makes a decision not to accept it, to not become the person she foresees herself becoming. But even that is a change in and of itself, just a different kind of change than what would've happened if she had gone along with it. It's when the characters try to fight undergoing any kind of change at all that they perish.
Of course, the Shimmer doesn't have to be a place.Watching four people navigating uncertain terrain in isolation can't help but bring to mind the pandemic, and how going through it has also changed so many people. Traumatic events changing people is not a new concept, and it's made even more stark by Radek's observation about Sheppard, as she thinks about how she'd feel if her dying and in pain was the only part of her that survived, the way it did for Sheppard. And in that sense, it's a reflection of what happens to someone unwilling to change at all; they perish, and the key memory of them that remains is how they perished.
In the end, Annihilation doesn't provide any easy answers to its questions. Which is fitting, because there are no easy answers to the questions of change and transformation. There are just choices to be made, and looked back on, perhaps in regret, perhaps in relief.
OUR NEXT MOVIE OF THE WEEK or 10/4: A Touch of Zen
ALWAYS THE BRIDESMAID WEEK!
Next week we're finally catching up with King Hu's legendary wuxia film A Touch of Zen. Be sure to join us for our discussion on Monday of this film, available on the Criterion Channel and for rent at the usual places.
NEXT PICTURE SHOW PODCAST for 9/28: Hard Eight
The podcast kicks off a pairing about gamblers getting in over their heads with Paul Thomas Anderson's Hard Eight. Join us Wednesday for our discussion of this film, available on Prime Video and kanopy and for rent at the usual places.