Showing The Incomprehensible - Annihilation's Influences
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Annihilation is one of the best films of the past two decades, of ANY genre: revolutionary, challenging, provocative, stunningly visual and almost, if we are open to it, altering our consciousness, at least while watching it. That it was distributed so poorly is a fucking disgrace, but time will assure this film is given a status of absolute CLASSIC! and put it alongside titles such as 2001 and Blade Runner.
The film is crap. The casting is crap. You must be talking about some other film. Only two women in that group are memorable. The rest are all the same forgetable. So how can It be gone if the casting is so bad?
Annihilation was both refreshing and disturbing. That bear scene was more troubling for me than the Alien dinner scene and Ash scene combined. I have been an avid sci-fi fan for decades. The 2000s have brought us so many classics. Interstellar, Another Earth, Bladerunner 2049, Arrival, Ex Machina, and many more. But all tugged at our sophomoric expectations instead of challenging us. Annihilation, however, set aside for me what it means to be human and instead questioned everything I thought I knew. And then exposed my fears. Then after exposing them, they pulled them out and exposed them to tyranny. Yes, Interstellar was probably my favorite sci-fi of the 2000s. But Annihilation is right there with it.
@@africanhistory - it's okay if you don't understand this film and expose yourself for how clueless you are. If you need a hug, let us know. Go back to watching some DC, Marvel, or other superhero waste of film. Or maybe you prefer crap films like Mad Max Fury Road, Forrest Gump, and Saving Private Ryan. Or maybe The Godfather. Suck an egg.
@@africanhistory Well, you are entitled to your opinions, but not only do I disagree, the characters being "memorable" in the traditional sense isn't even the point.
@@Physics_Dude Word!
Annihilation has become one of my favourite films of all time. It's so smart and well made. I remember the first time I watched it I felt like I was in some sort of trance almost as if I was experiencing some kind of trippy feeling
Then do yourself a favour and try Andrei Tarkovsky's films "Solaris" and "Stalker" next. They don't have this kind of colourful CGI, but they are also very medidative and trippy, and the director uses a lot of nature's imagery to create an inexplicable sense of wonder. Much like H.P. Lovecraft's story "The Colour Out of Space", the source material for "Solaris" (by Stanisław Lem) and "Stalker" (Arkadi & Boris Strugatsky's "Roadside Picnic") deals with alien(-influenced) landscapes that have an inexplicable psycho-physical effect on humankind.
@@elfsieben1450 Even the newer version of Solaris.
Statements like this instantly tell me you cannot be serious about cinema. It is like in a discussion of music telling me Drake last album is the best in music history! You cannot be serious.
@@elfsieben1450 The original Solaris is a masterpiece.
The whole movie is dreamy, it's one of the best sci-fi movies ever made.
The alien sound in the movie was the most beautiful alien thing I heard
You're welcome: ua-cam.com/video/X6twHZCfGtQ/v-deo.html
same also the aliens in Arrival
the alien sound is actually a rock song by the sick puppies ua-cam.com/video/liW-kWFiXtQ/v-deo.html
Dan -Horsenwelles- Williams I just realized that. Great song btw
Seriously
I've always been a fan of the unknowable threat trope found in the works of H. P. Lovecraft and i appreciate that this film draws it's inspiration from those stories, but the best scene in this film has to be when the bear creature is screaming in one of it's victims voices. One of the best horror scenes i've seen in years. :)
I will agree that is probably the best scene from a filmmaking standpoint. Just raw terror created so well through sound design and production design without a jump scare or anything.
I also absolutely love the way the scene on the camcorder followed by the pool scene unfolds. It's so perfectly structured to make it feel like area x is closing in on the characters.
ƁᴇғᴏʀᴇƮʜᴇļɴᴛᴇʀɴᴇᴛ honestly I was more amazed by the real lyrebird, that mimics sounds perfectly .... Search for it. These things exist in the real world.
The bear scene was the worst.
1. What happened to the bear's own throat? And why just the throat, why not steal her thumbs to use her gun?
2. Does the bear do this *all* the time? Does it rip out and use the larynx of everything it eats? Every deer, rabbit and stray pet?
3. When did the bear learn English? How did it pick out those phrases as meaningful, as opposed to everything else she said?
Makes bugger all sense.
+Smeghead McSmeg "What happened to the bear's own throat? And why just the throat, why not steal her thumbs to use her gun?"
You're assuming that's all that was changed and that the bear creature had a choice as to what can be changed about itself.
"Does the bear do this all the time? Does it rip out and use the larynx of everything it eats? Every deer, rabbit and stray pet?"
We can only assume.
"When did the bear learn English? How did it pick out those phrases as meaningful, as opposed to everything else she said?"
Even more assumptions.
"Makes bugger all sense."
I agree, your line of questioning makes no sense at all.
ƁᴇғᴏʀᴇƮʜᴇļɴᴛᴇʀɴᴇᴛ
With no internally consistent rules for the "shimmer", it's just deus ex machina. Absolutely anything can happen and, "It's the shimmer", is all the explanation you need. Dead come back to life? Shimmer. Portman has a wank and squirts rainbows out of her ass? Shimmer!
That's just lazy story writing.
Great video. When Annihilation came out I got to go to a screening of the film with director Alex Garland and I got to ask him a question about this very same thing: his influences. He described his influences as an amalgamation of all the things that he has read or watched including Apocalypse Now, Stalker, and Alien. He's brilliant. Can definitely see Lovecraft as well in it.
I suspect the Lovecraft influences may have been more direct on the book, and therefore also the movie, even if it wasn’t an immediate influence on Garland.
Great video. Annihilation is one of my favourite movies of recent years and I think you really articulated what I loved about it. That feeling of “not being able to explain/express what you experienced” is something that most people will encounter at some point in life and this movie does a great job of bringing that feeling across in my opinion.
This video was on my Watch later playlist for a very long time, at least 3 years. So much that it was the cover thumbnail of the playlist. I shouldn't have wait this long, this is really amazing and shows even 5 years ago Thomas used to put unique perspective into films he's talking about, the right kind of video essay.
Finally the link I was looking for. References to Lovecraft's work were so obvious to me and I felt so disappointed that nobody mentioned or even noticed them before!
This video is extremely satisfying.
Superb interpretation, Thomas. Much more thought provoking than other reviews I've watched.
The film is very captivating. One that gets better the more you see it; I'm not one to watch a movie more than once in most instances. The film is genius and is supportive of the view that alien, intelligent life may be totally unrecognizable to us if and when contact is made.
Perhaps not the most popular, but I feel the best of Alex Garland's extraordinary work.
Tarkovsky's Stalker and Solaris come to mind. As do some experiences with Ayahuasca and Yopo (Anadenanthera peregrina). My NDE at the age of 11 transcended all of this.
Beautiful rendering of a beautiful interpretation.
Thanks.
I will never forget the first time I saw a trailer for Annihilation. I was waiting for the Last Jedi to start, And at that point in my life I was watching more films, with one of my all time favorites being Ex Machina. So of course I rushed to see Annihilation the moment I saw it was in theaters, and was not disappointed. Truly a great film
Finally someone suggested the psychedelic aspect and influence! I read the Southern Reach Trilogy, and even just from reading into this beautiful story, I couldn't help but notice some influence from the psychedelic world. The movie did a pretty good job at depicting Area X even though it seems almost impossible. I really liked your video and you had a cool analysis. Keep it up !
I highly advise anyone who enjoyed Annihilation to read the book. Whilst the movie is good, the book goes so much deeper. Only a tiny fraction of that which Jeff Vandermeer came up with was able to fit in this movie. I am quite sad that none of the video essays ever talk about it. Also, the two other books of the trilogy are quite different, yet they are an enjoyable read for all those who want to deepen the mystery.
I knew when I saw the trailer for the first time that it was going to be heavily inspired by H.P. Lovecraft's the color out of space. hell, I believe it might take place in the same universe!
The final scene inside the lighthouse, visuals are exactly the same as look a DMT trip...
Great video! I didn't realize there were so many parallels there were with "Color", especially since previous adaptations were so different. I know you've already had the Stalker convo below, but I'd argue Solaris is equally influential, and that both films' source novels are well worth exploring. To my memory, the end of Lem's Solaris could be used to parse Annihilation pretty well...
So we encounter something, perhaps an alien being, that seems essentially immaterial and which apparently wishes to toy with, or experiment on, or manipulate living creatures.
I am 69. I have always thought that there were things out there that scientists do not know exist. Years ago, it turned out we have one right here! Time magazine talked about a creature that lives on the ocean floor. For years scientists thought that was impossible. The pressure was over 500 pounds per square inch. What was even more mind-boggling? It lives right next to a natural gas vent where it flourished. Its size might have been two to six inches. Back then if a scientist predicted that could happen, he would have been run out of the scientific community. For this reason, I LOVE this film!! Far more than dispensing with cliches, it showed us a whole new possibility and it all started not by a hostile force, but something random from outer space that, "just happened."
One similar incredible film that I recommend is The Andromeda Strain. (!!)(Michael Crichton) about a lethal space virus that we could not figure out.
This may be my absolute favorite video on UA-cam. Bravo my friend, bravo.
Wow, I just saw this movie for a second time tonight and found your comment about posting this video soon on another one so I subscribed to know when it would come out, didn't expect it to be minutes later! Great video on what is one of the best movies I've ever seen
That's lucky timing! Thanks for watching :)
The reason I love this movie is because it is one of very few or perhaps the only one that shows how aliens would be completely different than us rather than something we could be buddy buddy with
The Endless
Every time someone talks about DMT i get a nice chill on the neck.
This stuff breaks every barrier. I think this is the room of death, colours which i didnt know existed, the deep deep feeling being finally home after a long travel, it feels like a hug from god.
Dying no longer scares me. I have seen what is possible in this world.
If you want to know why we are here or if you have other question to this life, you should read more about DMT and maybe, just maybe give it a try. (if youre older than 25) !!
Its the only thing which give me some answers who are clearer than i could ever imagine.
Dont do drugs, do psychedelics ;-)
Take care of you guys and inform yourself before you do anything!
Finally a review that isnt full of it. I now know how to enjoy the movie.
No other movie explored "otherwordliness" so thoroughly as Annihilation
the scenery reminds me of the jungle of decay in Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, the imagery reminds me of 2001: a space odyssey
Finally a great analysis of annihilation. This was so satisflying enjoy. Embracing the unknown with a story with no common closure.
Excellent analysis, congratulations, it is a channel with a general and broad content. Greetings from Colombia.
Excellent. At times very unique and thought provoking analysis. I enjoyed your video very much.
Annihilation is the best movie adaptation of Roadside picnic, somehow.
Brilliant video, absolutely superb editing. Loved the film immensely
Love,love,this movie Have watched about 20 times. Had to watch a few times to get meaning!
,
The framing device, probably forced on it by the studio, is the huge weakness of this movie. It lost so much intrigue every time it cuts back to her being interviewed by Wong's character. Just let it be mysterious. That's the edge that written science fiction still has on films, it's a form much more willing to leave things unsaid, unexplained.
I loved everything about this movie. I wished they could’ve made it pg13 so I could’ve seen it in theaters. I hope they adapt the next 2 books too, maybe on Netflix if not in theaters
I love how it feels like a metaphor about how relationships inevitably change people.
A sci-fi representation of how we rub on each other. 😄
10:40 I do enjoy that, but in this movie there wasnt enough to work with
What's great about the film is that it's about nothing and everything at the same time. Depends on how you view it. The Shimmer it's like a mirror. It's where you see the reflection and what you see there's not going to be liked. Not at first, but once you find enough courage to look, to learn, to accept, to forgive.
The unknowness is similar to 2001: A Space Odyssey, where your mind can't comprehend, and won't. Just experience it as it happens.
I love this film, it's very rare to get to see something simultaneously so strange, unusual, beautiful and horrifying. It's almost a one of a kind film, and we're very unlikely to see a movie of this kind at least until far unto the future sometime, IMO. Watching this, i really felt the nostalgia about times i've spent tripping on LSD, especially during the scene pointed out at 3:33 took me right back there.
My experiences with that were similarly beautiful and mind blowing yet dangerous as well (i'm lucky to be alive at all). Even if i was killed, i would have been happy to go. It was such a bewildering experience that if i wasn't permitted to continue living, i would have been happy to end at that time with those memories, it did seem like the best way to end and i did deserve to be killed. But perhaps that would have been too kind a fate.
Lucy is another film that i feel the same way about.. but not to the level that Annihilation made me feel, that was something else for sure
The plant at 2:23 reminds me of the Tyranids from Warhammer 40k, which although they operate in unison using telepathic connection as a hivemind, are described as a space-faring ecosystem and that's why this plant reminds me of them. One branch growing all manner of different flowers, but at least the plant is beautiful and probably smells nice - Tyranids would be very much the opposite in every way imaginable. They absorb and assimilate new DNA from any and all life they consume to create new, different kinds of ground forces for more ways to defeat any resistance in their eternal hunger of invading planets and stripping them dry of all life, leaving nothing but barren rocks in their wake.
If you want something simultaneously strange, unusual, beautiful and horrifying in movies, check out "2001: A Space Odyssey" (1968), "Zabriskie Point" (1970), "Solaris" (1972 + 2002), "World on a Wire" (1973), "Suspiria" (1977 + 2018), "Stalker" (1979), "Brazil" (1985), "Dark City" (1998), "eXistenZ" (1999), "Mandy" (2018), "Color Out of Space" (2019).
LSD trip' inspired movie: Enter the Void
Great video, thanks!
This movie's ending is one of my favorite endings of any story.
What about Stalker by Tarkovsky? Sounds like a meaningful influence.
Saw this the morning after i went on an acid trip, quite a thing to see in theaters
Ever heard of Solaris By Stanislaw Lem ?
Idk I'd say it was pretty clear, meaning wise.
Best movie I saw in 2018 so far !
Earned a sub
We may experience in our lives... Or afterwards?
Fuck yeah man, fuck yeah
ITS JUST POKEMON GOD DAMN IT
although i like the theme of weird life forms in movies, physicists and biologists will tell you that alien intelligences would most likely be at least somewhat similar to us.
The ways of man are lesser then god's ways remember that Mathew 19:21 with god all things are possible
The only thing that made it worth watch this 11:39 was Natalie Portman, she is beautiful beyond words.
lovecraft, really? not tarkovsky's stalker? the movie kinda fell when the cancer chick decided to "guard the tower" from the ground with a reading lamp in her face, also sending 5 suicidal / manic depressive unstables all armed with the same weapon is probably not most the scientific thing to do. Why not come by boat from the sea? The bear thing was great though and the 3d fractal was an excellent choice, very meta. A+ for effort though. Btw for all those who think this was a happy ending, they both got dissected or at the very least spent the rest of their lives in quarantine... and then dissected :)
I mean, Stalker is surely an influence as well but that doesn't deny Lovecraft's influence.
They say at the beginning that they've already tried coming at it from "land, sea, air."
They do stupid things in the shimmer because A. with the exception of Lena they're scientists not survival experts or soldiers, and B. the shimmer messes with your mind from the moment you set foot in it.
Lovecraft's writings predate Stalker.
sapin it's so deep fake. Sci fi in the 70s like 2001, stalker , Solaris were actually deep. Being into fractals I was even disappointed in the use of fractal flame, and mandelbulb, very generic. In whole, nothing worth revisiting.
Metatron it's was written before the feminist bullshit, and explained in the book they tried hundreds of combinations before, and no one came back. So it's like saying Ripley in alien is a feminist movie, it's dumb as rocks thinking.
Consider Lovecraft's "The Colour out of Space": a meteor hits the earth; funny hues penetrate everything, the vegetation changes, then the animals and ultimately the farmer and his family on whose property the meteorite has crashed. The demise of the farmer's sons and wife are particularly gruesome. Far more resemblance than with Tarkovsky, I'd say.
Lovecrafian?
Color out of Space...good story...and there is a German language film made from the story that was pretty good for a low budget.
When you see films where the alien is really alien they are probably based on Lovecraft or Stanley G. Weinbaum ( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_G._Weinbaum )
9:01 No. For me, this movie was wasted potential because of the human element. The alien part was interesting, nice executed and so forth. Nice visuals, music design and general premise.
But the human characters behave like morons, there were plot holes, logical inconsistencies and woke garbage.
With all due respect I think you look too much into this ripoff of a Roadside Picknick
read the book. It was like a noobie author who is freshly inspired by lovecraft writes some -- at most -- ok story. The movie is even worse.
It wasnt the ending that turned me off of the flick
It was the idea of centering the film around a group of supposedly smart people, and following them as they made a series of remarkably bad decisions
Sorry it's deep fake sci fi in the 70s was actually deep, like 2001, stalker, Solaris ...
Hanniffy Dinn u wot m8
It's just gender swapped Stalker
Such a painfully average film, regardless of its ambition. And not just because it's almost entirely different than the book. That was only one reason as to whey the film isn't very good. And this video also showcases just how much audible and visual exposition contains. It's not good.
...and then there's the bad CG...
Good video, though, regardless of the film not being good.
You weren't lying when you said that your interpretation would be completely different from ours. Love films that do that, although it seems as if a lot of viewers did not appreciate that about Annihilation... Some interpretations indeed leave the end feeling kind of weak. I do dig the alien Adam & Eve interpretation but still believe the psychological Jungian view is the most impactful. Good stuff fellow Thomas - T
I ended up taking the line out of the essay, but at one point in an early draft I called Annihilation a "Rorschach Test of a movie" and I really think it is. It lays out this great narrative that, as you pointed out, draws from archetypes, and people are able to map their interpretations onto the story. Almost like a shared dream, viewers come away from the viewing each finding meaning where it's relevant to them.
Another movie that was panned by critics, believe it or not, was 2001 A Space Odyssey.
@@marilyn3583 I still see a lot of very conventional film fans shake their heads in contempt of 2001. "Totally overrated," they say, as though their failure to understand the film must be the fault of the film.
That said, I'm sure we've all written off at least one movie because we completely missed the point.
@@marilyn3583 Annihilation was NOT panned, it was met mostly with positive reviews and quite a lot of raves. This film will grow in stature, and indeed this is what is happening right now! It is a masterpiece and future analysis will point this out more and more.
@@ThomasFlight I like this - 'Watch this movie. What did you just see? Excellent - that tells me so much about you.'
The music of Annihilation made up literally 50% of the way I feel about it... it's hauntingly appropriate. I love Alex Garland's stuff...
I loved this film, just a great breath of fresh air. I know you can dig real deep into metaphor with this film but what I took most profoundly from this film was it's commentary on self-destruction, I'm only in my early 20's but I've struggled with depression and addiction for awhile and this film spoke to that side of me. I found the idea that the shimmer was both horrifying and yet had such a weird beauty to it reminded me of how I feel when I think back on my depression/anxiety and a self-destructive nature - cause mental illness does kind of feel like a cancer of the spirit, just growing & rotting you form inside until you get to the core.
I don't know if I articulated that well at all, & probably sounds pretentious, it's hard to explain but this film was a treat.
A fantastic post, analysis & commentary buddy! 👍🏽👍🏽
Not going to lie, this movie fucked me up when I watched it. This was an excellent video essay!
TekGeekHD but it was a really bad movie
@@abuferasabdullah The beauty of the world building saved it a little, but yeah the story structure kinda sucked.
Dude, overlaying the narration from The Color on the movie footage gave me chills. You've nailed a key source of inspiration for this amazing movie.
"we may have to learn to live with our inability to explain what we experience"
I love that line, Thomas.
I think our need to explain that we experience is part of our need to feel connected to each other. Especially when a movie confronts us with questions we don't know how to answer. It feels lonely, or a bit frightening in a way.
And in not being able to answer, sometimes we blame the movie for asking bad questions, lol.
Lonely, frightening, eery - Under the Skin (Scarlett Johanssen) gave me this exact feeling as well. I don't think there's even a word to describe how it reached into me & affected me.
No one is going to mention Roadside picnic influence in Annihilation??
The “zone”, alien encounter and the fact that two beings can’t comprehend each other or understand that they are facing one another, the inexplicable anomalies
Well said, Roadside Picnic is definitely the first novel I thought of when I watched it.
Yep, I immediately thought of that (and Tarkovsky's Stalker) while watching this. The Zone shares many similarities with The Shimmer.
Totally agree, fortunately I was one that it worked on, beautifully I might add. But I think it's hard for some to accept that there will just be some films that don't do the trick for them, and want some hard answers that they'll likely never find.
TRUE to me ! The mystery has to be kept untill each viewer / reader / listenner find his own interpretative way , maturing along the years . Annihilation his still living in many minds i think ( i think about a beautifull deep Adult SF serie : Raised by wolves also ) . By the way , what did you do on the project ? ps : apologise for my "froggy" english !
Great vid, brother. Perfectly paced and well-written.
Thanks Will!
Great video and analysis. Around three years ago I had a life changing experience with DMT that has left me with a profound feeling of being changed in a way that's impossible to convey. Watching this film was almost like revisiting that place. I have absolutely no doubt that for a few minutes I was connected to something not of this known world. We are so limited, but our ego struggles with that fact and tries to frame itself as the centre of the universe, when in reality we are simply clueless to our whereabouts. Our origins and even our supposed reality?
panicsum where did u get DMT?
In true McKenna fashion, it found me.
There are echoes of The Crystal World by JG Ballard in this movie. Undoubtedly, it has influenced Alex Garland in making the film as he has borrowed the names of characters from the novel, (Ventress, Thorensen). Well worth a read for those wishing to further explore the themes of the movie.
I read lovecraft's "the colour out of space" first. And when I watched "Annihilation" I instantly thought it has to be connected. Thank you for confirming this!
hell of a revelation, right.
Incredible job! Really loved this essay a lot. Annihilation was one of my favorite movies that I've seen recently. I really tried to dig into the subtext and read into the narrative between Lena and Kane. I see it as almost as analogous with Biblical stories about marriage and self-destruction.
That's what I love about this movie, so much going on and so many ways to can see meaning in it that aren't competing with the other interpretations.
Spoilers --
You could read the film as being almost entirely about their relationship. She goes in to "rescue him" and right a wrong, and she ends up destroying some part of herself, and whatever part that is... is what allows them to be reunited.
awesome analysis! The Colour Out of Space is one of my favorites (Huge Lovecraft fan here). This movie is the closest thing to an adaptation of that story we'll ever get and i think in that, it does it great justice.
Tiago Soares What about the film classic The Curse , starring Wil Wheaton? The movie has a beat by beat telling of the book, and it's not even credited by the movie at all...
What about Richard Stanley's new film with Nicolas Cage?
Fantastic video. This movie made me feel things I couldn’t describe. It was a completely overwhelming experience that I firmly believe only film can provide. In regards to your analysis, maybe we’ve been conditioned to gauge our enjoyment of a film based solely on its plot? Whenever a movie like Annihilation comes around, that does not conform to conventions of storytelling in film, then it becomes polarizing (as you mentioned in the video). Take for example the second season of Mr. Robot, it did have many episodes that pushed the overarching story forward but for the most part, it was just episodes of introspection within the protagonist’s mind and at times it actually felt “hard” to watch. I felt the same with Annihilation at times. But just like Mr. Robot managed to do it (at least for me), Annihilation pushed forward with its vision and incredible production and it ended up being a compelling experience.
If you want that genuinely cinematic, overwhelming experience only films can provide, check out Panos Cosmatos' "Mandy", whose effect goes way beyond plot, and whose stylistics also make reference to the psychedelic experience in a meaningful way.
This is the best Annihilation movie analysis I found on UA-cam so far. great work.
Excellent job on this video. Finally someone who has researched the background and the Lovecraft connection.
AND BIG SPOILER ALERT
I don't understand how viewers are having such a hard time understanding the film and especially the end ...it's the most beautiful alien invasion ever filmed and the alien won...the end.
The film for me is about the journey of a group of broken people trying to find some kind of answers and meaning in their own lives. They tell the basic story of what the alien is doing by playing out their scenes. The Shimmer is a petri dish where the alien is testing all the possible ways that it can continue its existence.
The alien has shown up and is looking for traction and finally finds it in the humans who inhabit the earth.
It's not that complicated and it's not lacking in plot or resolution. I would ask people to watch the film Ascension by Karim Hussain and then come back and and view Annihilation again.
And the more times you watch it the more you see. Can't wait to get this one in-house.
I did not like the way it was executed, paced and especially acted... You can be inexplicable but still be beautiful like Kubrick's 2001 but this was a mess from the start to finish, solely and heavily depending upon serene visual experiences which eventually became too mindless & excessive to enjoy... The story sucks but probably if I am high I might enjoy the end bit a little... Boring, pretentious stuff that could have used scientific consistency but still being elusive... 0:34 if this doesn't wanna make you slap the bitch out of this actress then I don't know what would...
I can see how to an average viewer the ending would be difficult to understand. Don't be so pretentious. Some film goers seek entertainment. That's why we have great people like Thomas to help break it down for those people!
FTR I loved this movie.
@@tylerfrancavilla8111 Was your response directed towards me...???
What if I told you that you didn't even get the movie? It's an allegory for trauma and change, which is why the final confrontation is a reflection of the protagonist, because her change requires self destruction and not ways necessarily of positive or negative aspects, and the outcome of one's character afterwards isn't really known, which is a terrifying concept. The movie isn't about the alien, it's about the group of characters. They literally tell you throughout the movie that this is the case too.
@@An0nim0u5 No - it was directed at the Original Poster - Conflict Magazine.
Absolutly amazing movie. Watched it as it came out and still often think about it as well, also read the books. For me, it works best as a metaphor for mental illness and trauma; the horrifying beauty of the shimmer and the different ways all the women succumb to it captures very well how depression and psychosis feels like.
Well well done sir. Love that you captured what was in my head but couldnt say about the film. Thank you for this, seriously.
Great vid. Though I think you have missed out what imo is the primary inspiration - "Roadside Picnic" by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky (and the film adaptation "Stalker" by Andrei Tarkovsky).
Another inspiration would be Stanisław Lem's "Solaris", in which an alien landscape - much like a continental/global maritime/volcanic "Rorschach test lava lamp" - brings first abstract alien shapes & forms, but also such mirroring or seemingly mocking earthly phenomena, and later visitors' fantasies, memories & traumata into concrete being without any scientific explanation found despite decades of research. This novel has also been adapted to film, first by Andrei Tarkovsky and later by Steven Soderbergh.
@@elfsieben1450 not seen the film but I’ve read the novel. It’s very good.
@@gordonmarshall5980
Yes, it is!
The novel goes deeper than both film adaptations which focus on Kelvin's mission and the return plot around his wife.
The films are still awesome in their own right, however.
I believe that the entire "Solaris" could well be made into a mini-series.
The last act/acts to this film are powerful and, to me extremely and atmospherically satisfying, tho not surprising. To me the ending and all leading up to it are of a kind, and evoked a very subjective state of mind, like direct connection to the subconsciousness---or the ether--- of existing/of existence. Like the well in COLOUR OUT OF SPACE, there really is no bottom at the bottom, just the flow of inexplicable colors that draw us in and make us want to think about them. That's as close as i can come with words. It is all very DMT, and that doesn't equate very often with boffo boxoffice/entertainment for the masses.
Solaris has a very similar premise. Amazing book, try reading it if you haven't
This is a beautiful movie, it's a Masterpiece, I love it
hell yes, friend
What about Stalker?
The best anaylsis I've seen of this captivating movie; and I have watched a many fumbling attempt at "decoding" Annihilation. Well done.
You should check this one out! ua-cam.com/video/URo66iLNEZw/v-deo.html
*the color....... the color.......*
I really like your ending idea with a new Adam and Eve. I thought that made perfect sense and honestly made me feel a little closer to understanding this movie.
While this film checks all the boxes of what I find interesting in a movie, it was an almost completely underwhelming experience to me. But I would _love_ to be able to see it through everyone elses eyes and be fascinated by it, simply because I feel like I'm missing out on one of the few deep sci fi movies out there. Any perspectives?
The lighthouse scene is one of my favourite moments of cinema in recent years. And I think the importance of Ben Salisbury and Geoff Barrow's music cannot be underestimated (they all composed the music for Ex Machina and a lot of the music from DEVS, and Geoff is also a member of the trip hop group Portishead)
I love these types of stories. Did anyone else have a hard time with the dialogue? Like it was made for a youth audience? It was no Roadside Picnic/Stalker in that sense. I would have enjoyed it more as a silent film
The Lovecraft story parallels are new to me, and your video does an excellent job of presenting them. I think they mesh well with a realization I had recently, that the shimmer’s incomprehensibility is mutual. It’s an exploration of our universe from somewhere so incomprehensible that the shimmer, its perceptions and knowledge being grounded in that unknowable other, has no basis for understanding our universe.
Having some ability to manipulate our universe, the shimmer is applying the fundamental process of learning language: mimicking/repeating words, altering them, combining them. It’s doing this in an attempt to understand our universe and make contact, and it’s applying it at all sorts of different scales. From the chemical makeup of DNA, to body parts, to whole organisms, it’s treating all of these things and more as potential mediums of communication and trying to learn through interaction, trying to discover if there are even beings in this universe that could be communicated with.
I don’t think the shimmer understood the nature/scale/context of what constitutes a being in our universe until the ending.
That's the greatest take on "Annihilation" I have come across yet!
(Also, at its core, it's like a reversal of Stanisław Lem's novel "Solaris", where humanity - over decades - tries to "read" and communicate with a [seemingly?] "expressive", possibly conscious planet, trying out all kinds of scientific and even military methods in order to learn how it "ticks".)
The song at the end “The alien” is one of the best pieces of music I’ve ever heard in a film. It’s is the definition of how I feel when I had the dread of the unknown or the fear of what’s behind me or around the next corner.
This movie is just an indirect adaptation of The Colour out of Space. If you liked this, you'll LOVE the 2020 movie Color out of Space with Nicolas Cage!!
Pretty wild how you refer to the ending as a Deus Ex Machina of sorts. Without giving any spoilers, that idea plays a large role in his most recent tv series, Devs. Highly suggest
What's unexplainable in the end? Alien mergess with flash grenade/fire and burns itself out. This spreads. All that's left is the contaminated girl and the clone.
I just thought this film was a modern adaptation of the Lovecraft story The Colour out of Space.
I have a very polarized view of 'Annihilation' the film. On one hand, it's a gorgeous, mind-bending, slow-burning, thought-provoking work of art. On the other, it utterly, deeply betrays its source material. Not trying to trash-talk the film, because it is very good, but the more I think about the more true it feels. It strips away the Thoreauvian, ecological themes central to the book (which I find underused in a serious manner in cinema), all of the story except for the scenes where the Biologist's husband arrives home and the team enters Area X, heavily borrows elements from H. P. Lovecraft's 'The Colour Out of Space' while rejecting all of the breathtakingly unique and original imagery and creations of the novels (like the Tower and Crawler, which were not minor details at all but what the whole thing revolved around), totally changes the characters in terms of both appearance and personality (except for the psychologist), removes the profound environmental debates and analyses that added so much depth to the original, ignores the fact that the novels are not three separate stories but one long story, and all in all removes any trace of Jeff VanderMeer's essence. My appreciation for the film grows the more I watch it, but so does the feeling that I would rather have seen someone like Terrence Malick or Darren Aronofsky or Robert Eggers who are skilled with surrealism but can give the natural world the depth and centrality it deserves.
Robert Eggers However Is More With Folk Tales And
He Isn't Going To Ever Deal With Some Story's In The Modern Day.
I enjoyed a lot of this movie; I just wish they hadn't tried to explain it all by saying, "Area X is a prism...but it refracts E V E R Y T H I N G."
That's not even how prisms work. You're thinking of a mirror. Prisms simply spread out light into their composite frequencies (i.e. colors). The idea they're trying to put forth in the movie is that everything that you try to send out of the shimmer gets reflected back in and scrambled, but again, that's not what prisms do. Annnyway it doesn't really matter, but bc I'm a physicist that character really bothered me .
great Essay! i admit i didn't relate to Adam and Eve but i think of the ending in that way, i love this movie a lot, i believe the true face of sci fi is questioning and leaving the spectator thinking and that's exactly what annihilation does.
i'd like to know if garland based the colour cloud on terrence mckenna's descriptions of self transforming machine elves or if he came up with the same image as drugs+my imagination+mckenna's influence by accident. also if adam jones out of tool had any involvement in this film. a lot of the way through it and especially at the end i felt like i was watching a tool video
As a fan of both the book and the film, I loved your take here on the incomprehensibility of Annihilition's unknown. Good stuff man. Are you familiar with Michael Crichton's novel Sphere? He delves a bit into the inevitability of human understanding of alien behavior/motivations as well...he presents a good layman's terms analogy involving an alien microbe encountering a satellite orbiting Earth.