In early 2018 a friend and I saw Alex Garland’s Annihilation, mostly out of curiosity. I didn’t go in with any real expectations, but I came out of that theater a different person.
Adaptation is difficult. The written word interacts with an audience in a fundamentally different way than film or paintings. I can write “the dog wagged her tail” and you will make a dog in your mind. That dog will be different from the dog your friend imagines. Without you, a literate english speaker, that sentence doesn’t do anything. It's just some shapes on a screen or a page. But with you it changes, it has meaning and form, the process is active and it is abstract. When you play a movie on a screen there’s still interpretation in the viewer’s brain but it's automatic. They can leave the room and the movie will play just fine without them. It’s more concrete and the images themselves leave less abstract room.
Dog via wikipedia
This isn’t to call visual media worse, in fact the power to show you a dog is an asset unto itself. But it will always be the dog I showed you, and never the dog you imagined yourself. This is, to oversimplify, why the book is usually better than the movie. Because it was yours in a way that the movie can’t be by comparison.
In the book Annihilation Jeff Vandermeer uses this to its advantage. The book embraces this abstract conjuration as an inherent source of horror pointing out the limits of your own mind’s ability to know anything. As such, shifting from book to film requires cutting out certain core elements. But here’s the interesting part: the movie still feels faithful where you would expect a hollow imitation. It’s not the same, and yet it is. It’s smaller scale and grander. There’s a sort of transformation, a refraction of the source material that keeps in line with the themes and the framework of the book.
In the book Annihilation Jeff Vandermeer uses this to its advantage. The book embraces this abstract conjuration as an inherent source of horror pointing out the limits of your own mind’s ability to know anything. As such, shifting from book to film requires cutting out certain core elements. But here’s the interesting part: the movie still feels faithful where you would expect a hollow imitation. It’s not the same, and yet it is. It’s smaller scale and grander. There’s a sort of transformation, a refraction of the source material that keeps in line with the themes and the framework of the book.
Photo via the National Park Service B. Call
"...when you see beauty in desolation it changes something inside you. Desolation tries to colonize you."
In the novel, Area X was once a sparsely populated remote coastal wilderness that has been cut off and changed in inexplicable ways. Seeking answers, the United States government created an agency – The Southern Reach – to learn what it could. They sent in many expeditions. Some came back.
Annihilation is the account of the biologist on the 12th such expedition. She, along with three other women, a surveyor, an anthropologist, and a psychologist encounter things they cannot explain and a vast, strange wilderness. There is a tower that is also a tunnel with insane living words upon its walls, at night a strange unknown creature moans from beyond the marsh, in the distance there is a lighthouse containing untold secrets.
The novel focuses on the aforementioned tower: it is an oddity and not on any maps and so the 12th expedition tasks itself with investigating it. Upon their first descent (remember, it's also a tunnel) the biologist finds words like a dark sermon written on the walls in living fungus.
Annihilation is the account of the biologist on the 12th such expedition. She, along with three other women, a surveyor, an anthropologist, and a psychologist encounter things they cannot explain and a vast, strange wilderness. There is a tower that is also a tunnel with insane living words upon its walls, at night a strange unknown creature moans from beyond the marsh, in the distance there is a lighthouse containing untold secrets.
The novel focuses on the aforementioned tower: it is an oddity and not on any maps and so the 12th expedition tasks itself with investigating it. Upon their first descent (remember, it's also a tunnel) the biologist finds words like a dark sermon written on the walls in living fungus.
Where lies the strangling fruit that came from the hand of the sinner I shall bring forth the seeds of the dead to share with the worms that gather in the darkness and surround the world with the power of their lives...
The words infect her with spores that will change her from the inside out over the course of the novel. This is a big symbolic moment in the narrative, the tower is a symbol for trauma and pain, often making her associate it with her upbringing, her worst fears, and the loss of her husband who was part of the expedition before hers. The words, which are part of the tower, which stand for pain and traumatic memory, literally inhabit and transform her. “Desolation begins to colonize you.”
That night the biologist realizes the psychologist has been hypnotizing them to follow certain orders that they are not aware of. The biologist feels she must now be immune if she’s aware. She hides this. The next day the anthropologist is gone. Sent home according to the psychologist.
Reluctantly they continue their investigation of the tower; the psychologist does not join them this time. To her horror the biologist realizes that the tower is not concrete as she thought it was but a living, breathing structure and worse yet they realize that whatever must be writing the words on the walls is not far below them. And it is not in any way human, leaving a slime trail six feet wide with little marks to indicate it crawls along on foot-like structures. As such she calls the creature The Crawler.
They proceed, hyper-focused and desperate to understand more, until they find the body of the anthropologist, killed by the Crawler. She’s been killed in such a way that her flesh has been scorched to ash. They suspect the biologist compelled her to come down here but, between the Crawler, which must be very close now, and the psychologist they choose the latter. However they come to find she’s abandoned them. Tension grows between the two.
That night the biologist realizes the psychologist has been hypnotizing them to follow certain orders that they are not aware of. The biologist feels she must now be immune if she’s aware. She hides this. The next day the anthropologist is gone. Sent home according to the psychologist.
Reluctantly they continue their investigation of the tower; the psychologist does not join them this time. To her horror the biologist realizes that the tower is not concrete as she thought it was but a living, breathing structure and worse yet they realize that whatever must be writing the words on the walls is not far below them. And it is not in any way human, leaving a slime trail six feet wide with little marks to indicate it crawls along on foot-like structures. As such she calls the creature The Crawler.
They proceed, hyper-focused and desperate to understand more, until they find the body of the anthropologist, killed by the Crawler. She’s been killed in such a way that her flesh has been scorched to ash. They suspect the biologist compelled her to come down here but, between the Crawler, which must be very close now, and the psychologist they choose the latter. However they come to find she’s abandoned them. Tension grows between the two.
wikimedia commons.
St. Mark's wildlife refuge
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"Nothing that lived and breathed was truly objective--even in a vacuum, even if all that possessed the brain was a self-immolating desire for truth." |
The next day after arguing about whether to go back to the border or not, The surveyor agrees to stay at camp while the biologist investigates the lighthouse on a hunch. In it she finds evidence of unspeakable violence from earlier expeditions and a secret compartment filled to the brim with journals from prior expeditions, far far too many for only 12 expeditions to have been done. She reads for hours and eventually among them she finds her husbands journal but cant bring herself to read it yet but takes it with her.
On the way out, she finds the psychologist at the base of the lighthouse, dying, apparently having fallen from the top the previous night. The biologist interrogates her with little to show for it except that the border of area x is expanding. She heads back to camp as the sun sets, the psychologist dies quietly on the beach.
As night falls she encounters and narrowly escapes the moaning creature in the swamp. She spends the night in a tree and by morning she is almost back at camp. But the surveyor is waiting for her and shoots her, having distrusted her and possibly experienced horrors of her own in their absence. The changes that are happening to her keep her alive and numb her pain.
It's a small moment but an important one for characterization; the surveyor asks for her name instead of killing her on the spot. The biologist cannot bring herself to do it: “I don’t see what difference that makes."
She reads her husband's journal and realizes that she never tried to understand him as a complex person on his own and in doing so realizes that she so desperately wanted to do so and is too late. Indeed the impact of this moment cannot be overstated as it colors how she describes the actions of others in retrospect. More important still is this as the revelatory moment for her character arc. She takes time to process this and then descends the tower unarmed to find the Crawler. She does and its form is incomprehensible.
On the way out, she finds the psychologist at the base of the lighthouse, dying, apparently having fallen from the top the previous night. The biologist interrogates her with little to show for it except that the border of area x is expanding. She heads back to camp as the sun sets, the psychologist dies quietly on the beach.
As night falls she encounters and narrowly escapes the moaning creature in the swamp. She spends the night in a tree and by morning she is almost back at camp. But the surveyor is waiting for her and shoots her, having distrusted her and possibly experienced horrors of her own in their absence. The changes that are happening to her keep her alive and numb her pain.
It's a small moment but an important one for characterization; the surveyor asks for her name instead of killing her on the spot. The biologist cannot bring herself to do it: “I don’t see what difference that makes."
She reads her husband's journal and realizes that she never tried to understand him as a complex person on his own and in doing so realizes that she so desperately wanted to do so and is too late. Indeed the impact of this moment cannot be overstated as it colors how she describes the actions of others in retrospect. More important still is this as the revelatory moment for her character arc. She takes time to process this and then descends the tower unarmed to find the Crawler. She does and its form is incomprehensible.
“As I adjusted to the light, the Crawler kept changing at a lightning pace, as if to mock my ability to comprehend it. It was a figure within a series of refracted panes of glass. It was a series of layers in the shape of an archway. It was a great sluglike monster ringed by satellites of even odder creatures. It was a glistening star. My eyes kept glancing off of it as if an optic nerve was not enough."
It enters her mind and nearly destroys her in a moment that is difficult for me to parse literally or metaphorically and then after a time it relents and goes about its business. She takes time to recover, leaves, goes to the lighthouse and writes the journal, her final intent being to set out for an island her husband had mentioned in his own journal. Sure of herself and who she is in a way she is never sure of anything else the whole story.
The biologist is someone who by her own admission prefers to disappear into her surroundings rather than interact with others. In this context "disappear" means "intense and all encompassing focus or observation". She finds human beings (which is to say connection and vulnerability with them) so painful and terrifying that she does everything in her power to focus on the plants and animals that surround her. In doing so she betrays something about herself that she's not fully aware of. She still seeks that connection desperately.
This gets complicated though. As from her childhood traumas of parental neglect and instability and having her only sense of safety torn from her, repeatedly, all she's ever known is that her enjoyment and her happiness will inevitably be punished, cut from her entirely. Just like the pool, just like her time in Rocky Bay. So when she finds a man she genuinely loves, thinks spending her life with him is something she'd be willing to do, eventually she thinks it's too intense, too vulnerable. Because to her there is no reality where he doesn't somehow rip her heart out if she can't push him away first. This gets amplified by his being pushy and even needy when he realizes she's driving and he can't tell why. So to her he clearly wouldn't love her if he knew her completely (all of this operates beneath the surface, she is aware only of fear and desperation and numbness).
This gets complicated though. As from her childhood traumas of parental neglect and instability and having her only sense of safety torn from her, repeatedly, all she's ever known is that her enjoyment and her happiness will inevitably be punished, cut from her entirely. Just like the pool, just like her time in Rocky Bay. So when she finds a man she genuinely loves, thinks spending her life with him is something she'd be willing to do, eventually she thinks it's too intense, too vulnerable. Because to her there is no reality where he doesn't somehow rip her heart out if she can't push him away first. This gets amplified by his being pushy and even needy when he realizes she's driving and he can't tell why. So to her he clearly wouldn't love her if he knew her completely (all of this operates beneath the surface, she is aware only of fear and desperation and numbness).
"There are certain kinds of deaths that one should not be expected to relive, certain kinds of connections so deep that when they are broken you feel the snap of the link inside you." |
Until she reads his journal. It's devoted to her completely and in a way that she knows is prioritizing her in a way that's selfless and gentle. She sees not only did he actually love her but he might have compromised. He was wrong to push but she was wrong lock him out as well. And suddenly it becomes too late to do anything but know that the things she always needed were ripped away again. By herself.
The reason she goes to face the crawler is not to fight it but merely to know *and accept it* and, in turn, for it to know her. By looking at the crawler as a metaphor for trauma she literally faces her own fears and accepts the ugly nightmares she houses in her own mind and in seeking to be understood by it she understands herself, it's traumatic and painful and it destroys her as she was but acknowledging this part of herself allows her to survive and in some small way to know more.
When combining these observations a crystalline and surprisingly tender image begins to form: the only reason she survives. The only reason her copy is different. Is because her husband loved her, and because she loved him back and realized tragically too late that expressing that did not need to consume her entirely.
What the first book establishes and the second two build and inform upon is a story about communication and empathetic understanding in the face of uncertainty and pain. It's a series about all the horrible things that happen to us, all the damage we do to one another without knowing it and how we change forever because of this. And how, despite the complete and total nightmare that is life and our limited, often pathetic attempts to understand it or even ourselves, that we are enough. That love and and connection and just the simple act of trying not even to fix but just to know what we can about each other is what's going to guide us through the dark into whatever we become on the other side safely.
The reason she goes to face the crawler is not to fight it but merely to know *and accept it* and, in turn, for it to know her. By looking at the crawler as a metaphor for trauma she literally faces her own fears and accepts the ugly nightmares she houses in her own mind and in seeking to be understood by it she understands herself, it's traumatic and painful and it destroys her as she was but acknowledging this part of herself allows her to survive and in some small way to know more.
When combining these observations a crystalline and surprisingly tender image begins to form: the only reason she survives. The only reason her copy is different. Is because her husband loved her, and because she loved him back and realized tragically too late that expressing that did not need to consume her entirely.
What the first book establishes and the second two build and inform upon is a story about communication and empathetic understanding in the face of uncertainty and pain. It's a series about all the horrible things that happen to us, all the damage we do to one another without knowing it and how we change forever because of this. And how, despite the complete and total nightmare that is life and our limited, often pathetic attempts to understand it or even ourselves, that we are enough. That love and and connection and just the simple act of trying not even to fix but just to know what we can about each other is what's going to guide us through the dark into whatever we become on the other side safely.
"There shall be a fire that knows your name, and in the presence of the strangling fruit, its dark flame shall acquire every part of you." |
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The main character’s journey is less about coming to understand herself in the way she understands her world but more about the transformational process of the catastrophic moments in our life and the inherent beauty and terror of being alive. People impress themselves onto you in this film and it makes no ambiguous claims that indeed to know someone intimately is to become intertwined and to invite loss and destroy who you were to make room for who you will become, which is wonderful and frightening.
This is often illustrated visually by juxtaposing sequences of the horrific with the beautiful. Jarringly and without warning.
The movie retains some things that I genuinely didn't expect it to be able to: the way the narrative shifts dreamlike between the expedition, the interrogation, and private memory creates a very similar sensation to a first person account. Allowing it to show an action, have her explain her reasoning to the interrogators, and then show a private thought that implies her true motivations or at least what occupies her mind. It's different but it's the same, re-purposing what was always there and changing it enough to suit the new format.
This duality is also underlined by the juxtaposition of horror with the strange and beautiful. The book does this as well, using it to demonstrate the biologist’s retreating into observation of the natural world under stress. In both versions it is to indicate that the transformations and the pain inherent in being alive are both frightening but can also be beautiful. The movie’s biggest shift in theme is exemplified with one of its smallest changes: the characters are given names.
The movie retains some things that I genuinely didn't expect it to be able to: the way the narrative shifts dreamlike between the expedition, the interrogation, and private memory creates a very similar sensation to a first person account. Allowing it to show an action, have her explain her reasoning to the interrogators, and then show a private thought that implies her true motivations or at least what occupies her mind. It's different but it's the same, re-purposing what was always there and changing it enough to suit the new format.
This duality is also underlined by the juxtaposition of horror with the strange and beautiful. The book does this as well, using it to demonstrate the biologist’s retreating into observation of the natural world under stress. In both versions it is to indicate that the transformations and the pain inherent in being alive are both frightening but can also be beautiful. The movie’s biggest shift in theme is exemplified with one of its smallest changes: the characters are given names.
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Beauty in desolation
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In the book, Area X can warp your sense of self and your motivations in such a way that you abandon your mission. To combat this the Southern Reach insists that while inside you are only your purpose. The movie, however would be much weaker if it retained this aspect because whereas the book is a story about pain and acceptance, the movie is a story about pain and identity. You will still be you even when transformed into something that isn't.
This is in part because of the necessary removal of the Crawler from the narrative. In doing this the movie compromises the core components of the initial narrative. But in doing so it frees itself up spatially in area x and narratively for more direct characterization. The psychologist for example is able to go through most of her character arc from all three books, being revealed as the director of the southern reach, needing to set things right or understand what she’s cost the countless people she set through, and even her cancer as the catalyzing element to set her plan into motion. Though in the film her motives are less grand, the book had her using the biologist as a weapon against area x, someone she knew might stand a chance based on her unique circumstances but the film has her the psychologist as someone bleaker. More ready to give up.
Which makes sense in line with the shift from the interpersonal to the intrapersonal focus that the film utilizes. The psychologist (Dr. Ventress, in the film) is possessed with “a self-immolating desire for truth” and her actions prioritize that above all else and it leads to her eventual destruction. All the characters in the film share this quality, they’re on what is essentially a suicide mission because in some fashion they believe they deserve to be punished.
This is in part because of the necessary removal of the Crawler from the narrative. In doing this the movie compromises the core components of the initial narrative. But in doing so it frees itself up spatially in area x and narratively for more direct characterization. The psychologist for example is able to go through most of her character arc from all three books, being revealed as the director of the southern reach, needing to set things right or understand what she’s cost the countless people she set through, and even her cancer as the catalyzing element to set her plan into motion. Though in the film her motives are less grand, the book had her using the biologist as a weapon against area x, someone she knew might stand a chance based on her unique circumstances but the film has her the psychologist as someone bleaker. More ready to give up.
Which makes sense in line with the shift from the interpersonal to the intrapersonal focus that the film utilizes. The psychologist (Dr. Ventress, in the film) is possessed with “a self-immolating desire for truth” and her actions prioritize that above all else and it leads to her eventual destruction. All the characters in the film share this quality, they’re on what is essentially a suicide mission because in some fashion they believe they deserve to be punished.
Becoming
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"If we don't move fast the person who started this mission won't be the one that ends it. I want to be the one that ends it." |
The biologist (Lena, in the film) sees it as a way to repent for her infidelity and it is through her that the depths of the theme are explored, culminating in a moment where she faces the alien that inhabits the lighthouse (itself a transformed landmark from the book what once was a symbol of false guidance and horrific truth has become the goal-point of the film’s narrative.). The sub theme of transformation is examined in this scene when the creature begins to mimic her both in its shape and its actions essentially becoming her, its a part of her and as such can be thought of as a symbol for her misdeeds or her source of pain. It is the twisted part of herself that she seeks to kill. It begins to suffocate her and any harm she brings to it is repeated onto herself until she realizes that fighting it is not a viable option. She must welcome this new part of herself as it is and only then is she able to end area X once and for all and thus metaphorically bringing an end to this period of suffering.
At the end of the film it becomes apparent that she is not the person she once was, the pain is gone and like in the book she accepted her darkest inner thoughts and feelings but the changes it put her through will remain and rather than using that to springboard into something unusually heartwarming as the book series does, it leaves you there. It offers no course of action and leaves you isolated yet asks you to accept this as the beautiful and horrible price of going through life itself. It’s bleak.
At the end of the film it becomes apparent that she is not the person she once was, the pain is gone and like in the book she accepted her darkest inner thoughts and feelings but the changes it put her through will remain and rather than using that to springboard into something unusually heartwarming as the book series does, it leaves you there. It offers no course of action and leaves you isolated yet asks you to accept this as the beautiful and horrible price of going through life itself. It’s bleak.
But even in this it remains true to a part of the series. At one point, near the end of Acceptance, the final book in the series the person the biologist becomes realizes the futility of a plan of action in times like this “how do we move forward?...as if if purpose could solve everything, could take the outlines of what was missing and by sheer will invoke it, make it appear, bring it back to life”. There is nothing to be done in the first place. The traumatic event is here and gone and the pain remains and all you can do is let it run its course and accept what may come. You come back from the brink changed but you are still just you. And this is merely the way of things.