A review by Chris Lee
Alex Garland is an auteur. I mean that in the very basic definition of the word. The man has control of his films. They are his voice, his ideas, his images, his characters.
Alex Garland is now also a proven and great auteur. After only two movies.
That’s incredible.
His first film as writer/director, Ex Machina, is a slow and plodding exercise in thought. Like all sci-fi filmmakers, he started with the basics. What does it mean to be human? What is the soul? What about our creations, our desire to fashion false imagery, is directly reflective of us? Is it what is good in us? What is bad? A mixture of both? Some may have found Ex Machina boring, as it uses a singular, claustrophobic location for the entirety of its runtime. Its actors speak less, and when they do, they are asking questions that they either will, or will not get a philosophical answer to. I considered it a fine work, but nothing that measured up to the fantastical brilliance of his screenplay for Sunshine (2007), or the action masterclass he wrote for Dredd (2012).
His second film as writer/director is such a visually epic, well-tuned piece of filmmaking that I have no choice but to call it a masterpiece. It will likely remain his masterpiece, because it is such a brilliant work of science fiction cinema that, at least in my opinion, it already stands among the greats. Close Encounters of the Third Kind, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Alien, Blade Runner should feel no shame accepting this piece of modern cinema into their fold.
His second film as writer/director is such a visually epic, well-tuned piece of filmmaking that I have no choice but to call it a masterpiece. It will likely remain his masterpiece, because it is such a brilliant work of science fiction cinema that, at least in my opinion, it already stands among the greats. Close Encounters of the Third Kind, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Alien, Blade Runner should feel no shame accepting this piece of modern cinema into their fold.
Starring Natalie Portman, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Oscar Isaac, and Tessa Thompson, Annihilation (2018), takes viewers on an audio-visual journey that delights and frightens the senses. The film wastes no time in setting up its plot, while keeping everything as wonderfully confusing as can be. I really don’t want to go into specifics, as it is better to go into this film blind, but I will say that the aloof viewer should avoid this film. You need to pay attention to this movie. Every bit of dialogue, every shot is telling the viewer something. This is the kind of movie that the filmmaker obsessed over, then got to pluck from their very brain.
The ending alone is one of the most profoundly beautiful and disturbing things I have ever witnessed in films. My mouth was agape, my hair stood straight, and my fingers clenched red around my arm-rests.
Annihilation is what happens when the person behind the camera is not only in control, but also knows what the fuck they’re doing.
Rating: Masterpiece
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