I’m not sure how William Goldman get’s to officially claim this quote, but if there is one notion at the crux of Alex Garland’s Annihilation it would be this old chestnut, “Nobody knows anything...... Not one person in the entire motion picture field knows for a certainty what's going to work. Every time out it's a guess and, if you're lucky, an educated one.”
The idea permeates our troubled film from internal narrative crisis all the way to the bizarre–potentially watershed—drama of Annihilation’s distribution. This identity crisis, the not knowing, works against Alex Garland’s newest, and all sympathies to my dude. Is Annihilation bad? Eh, it’s like a "Yes, but..." or "No, if…" thing—though this I can confirm: it’s a hot goddamn mess. That’s not entirely a negative, but to get there, first we have to talk about Stalker.
Annihilation’s similarities to Stalker are, you know, it’s a thing. Sure, for some of the immediate reasons—both are loose adaptations, both feature a mysterious zone triggered by an extraterrestrial event, both center around a journey into said zone and its effect on the passengers—but this is something more: a feeling, a tone, an atmosphere of deliberate disorientation. I recognize it’s unfair to outright compare the two. Stalker is not the paragon of originality. Garland poured soul and creativity in this project. But there isn’t enough distance between the two to avoid the conversation. Furthermore, what makes the comparison so jarring is Tarkovsky hacks his way through those tricky elements and emerges with a masterpiece. Garland’s Annihilation, well, it’s a dog’s breakfast. Or maybe, just maybe, it’s a Blade Runner type sitch, but more on that later.
One thing is clear, Alex Garland is ambitious. Riding the wave from his stellar debut Ex Machina, Garland was rightly given the helm to a massive project with lofty expectations. But part of Ex Machina’s success, it’s a claustrophobic, dread soaked film with three characters. Annihilation is scaled up to a large cast with an entire world to build. There are few questions as to whether Garland possess the skill to handle a production of any size, but this movie is undermined by so much minutiae. I didn’t like the visual tone (can we please, please kill off the lens flare), I thought Area X looked built not grown, there is no meat on the bone for our actors, and perhaps the biggest disappointment, they story is shambolic.
At best, I could talk myself into Annihilation as a meditation on not knowing–those words again—but uncertainty is a volatile element with which to tussle. I’m very much on board with no finite answers, but it never felt like this film knew what questions it was raising. That’s like god-level discombobulation, and if that was truly the thrust, why bother? Why spell out realizations about Area X? Why the very deliberate climactic sequence? Why the breadcrumb trail of videos peppered throughout the film? Why?
Unfortunately, within what story we are offered, the answers to the above questions mills out to something kinda, er...kinda dumb. Instead, if this is all meant to worship at the feet of enormous ambiguity, let’s go there. Fumigate me with existential dread. Pillory me with intrigue. Inoculate me from any and all understanding. But don’t tip your cards with an empty hand, and if you insist, at least play it with some clear-eyed bravura.
There is enough grace and intelligence here to save Annihilation from Interstellar-level fatuity, but I can’t help but wonder if Paramount Studios just did my guy dirty. Garland already proved what he can accomplish when left to his vision, but movies have an enormous surface area. When the money lenders at the top lose faith, the shit truly rolls downhill. Off screen battles are generally pretty boring, but the power struggle here signals something much more severe.
Paramount so wholly doubted Annihilation, they sold the international distribution rights. That is not only unheard of, it’s utterly mind bending, and portends terrible things. This movie will only be released in theaters in America and China (not even Garland’s UK home) and everyone else will get it via Netflix. That’s really bad. Bad for Garland, bad for filmgoers, bad for already gun shy studios, and bad for auteurs; the William Goldman dictum mutated to hideous new proportions.
So did some of the offscreen chicanery seep into the film? Maybe. The word seems to be Garland got his final cut, but I can’t help but wonder if once the fighting began, things both micro and macro just begin to unravel. There is an interesting film peeking out in places, so maybe, if we’re lucky, this is like a Blade Runner type sitch. There are seven different versions of Blade Runner. The original U.S. theatrical release is my least favorite, and it’s largely due to studio intervention. Some 20 years later, Ridley Scott released Blade Runner: The Final Cut, and for my money, it’s the superior version. Will we someday get a 19 hour, frenzied work print of Annihilation that is pure bliss? We can only hope so, but who knows?
The studio doesn’t know. The characters meandering through Area X certainly don’t know. Audiences around the world may never get the chance to know. And me, I don’t know a damn thing. Because nobody knows anything, not really. Where that can work to our surprise, in this case, it’s the not knowing that sinks Annihilation.
—Monte Monreal
The idea permeates our troubled film from internal narrative crisis all the way to the bizarre–potentially watershed—drama of Annihilation’s distribution. This identity crisis, the not knowing, works against Alex Garland’s newest, and all sympathies to my dude. Is Annihilation bad? Eh, it’s like a "Yes, but..." or "No, if…" thing—though this I can confirm: it’s a hot goddamn mess. That’s not entirely a negative, but to get there, first we have to talk about Stalker.
Annihilation’s similarities to Stalker are, you know, it’s a thing. Sure, for some of the immediate reasons—both are loose adaptations, both feature a mysterious zone triggered by an extraterrestrial event, both center around a journey into said zone and its effect on the passengers—but this is something more: a feeling, a tone, an atmosphere of deliberate disorientation. I recognize it’s unfair to outright compare the two. Stalker is not the paragon of originality. Garland poured soul and creativity in this project. But there isn’t enough distance between the two to avoid the conversation. Furthermore, what makes the comparison so jarring is Tarkovsky hacks his way through those tricky elements and emerges with a masterpiece. Garland’s Annihilation, well, it’s a dog’s breakfast. Or maybe, just maybe, it’s a Blade Runner type sitch, but more on that later.
One thing is clear, Alex Garland is ambitious. Riding the wave from his stellar debut Ex Machina, Garland was rightly given the helm to a massive project with lofty expectations. But part of Ex Machina’s success, it’s a claustrophobic, dread soaked film with three characters. Annihilation is scaled up to a large cast with an entire world to build. There are few questions as to whether Garland possess the skill to handle a production of any size, but this movie is undermined by so much minutiae. I didn’t like the visual tone (can we please, please kill off the lens flare), I thought Area X looked built not grown, there is no meat on the bone for our actors, and perhaps the biggest disappointment, they story is shambolic.
At best, I could talk myself into Annihilation as a meditation on not knowing–those words again—but uncertainty is a volatile element with which to tussle. I’m very much on board with no finite answers, but it never felt like this film knew what questions it was raising. That’s like god-level discombobulation, and if that was truly the thrust, why bother? Why spell out realizations about Area X? Why the very deliberate climactic sequence? Why the breadcrumb trail of videos peppered throughout the film? Why?
Unfortunately, within what story we are offered, the answers to the above questions mills out to something kinda, er...kinda dumb. Instead, if this is all meant to worship at the feet of enormous ambiguity, let’s go there. Fumigate me with existential dread. Pillory me with intrigue. Inoculate me from any and all understanding. But don’t tip your cards with an empty hand, and if you insist, at least play it with some clear-eyed bravura.
There is enough grace and intelligence here to save Annihilation from Interstellar-level fatuity, but I can’t help but wonder if Paramount Studios just did my guy dirty. Garland already proved what he can accomplish when left to his vision, but movies have an enormous surface area. When the money lenders at the top lose faith, the shit truly rolls downhill. Off screen battles are generally pretty boring, but the power struggle here signals something much more severe.
Paramount so wholly doubted Annihilation, they sold the international distribution rights. That is not only unheard of, it’s utterly mind bending, and portends terrible things. This movie will only be released in theaters in America and China (not even Garland’s UK home) and everyone else will get it via Netflix. That’s really bad. Bad for Garland, bad for filmgoers, bad for already gun shy studios, and bad for auteurs; the William Goldman dictum mutated to hideous new proportions.
So did some of the offscreen chicanery seep into the film? Maybe. The word seems to be Garland got his final cut, but I can’t help but wonder if once the fighting began, things both micro and macro just begin to unravel. There is an interesting film peeking out in places, so maybe, if we’re lucky, this is like a Blade Runner type sitch. There are seven different versions of Blade Runner. The original U.S. theatrical release is my least favorite, and it’s largely due to studio intervention. Some 20 years later, Ridley Scott released Blade Runner: The Final Cut, and for my money, it’s the superior version. Will we someday get a 19 hour, frenzied work print of Annihilation that is pure bliss? We can only hope so, but who knows?
The studio doesn’t know. The characters meandering through Area X certainly don’t know. Audiences around the world may never get the chance to know. And me, I don’t know a damn thing. Because nobody knows anything, not really. Where that can work to our surprise, in this case, it’s the not knowing that sinks Annihilation.
—Monte Monreal
RSS Feed
