Annihilation (Amazon, Paramount+)

0:01 Voyage. Welcome to watch this tonight. I'm your host, An Bettimore. I'm a producer, writer of film and television and now a podcast producer. And despite having every streaming service, I never know what to watch. So anytime I watch something good, I talk about it on the show. This way, you'll never have the same problem I do. I watched this tonight. There's always something good to watch. Let's get started, all right. Today on the show, we are doing one of our all star episodes about a movie that plays different with the passage of time. And the movie that we're doing, after much heated debate between myself and my guest Jeff, is Annihilation. So before we get into that, though, I want to introduce you to Jeff. Tell you about Jeff. So. Jeff and I met at the Vancouver Film School, and but I almost feel like I've known you so long. I had a moment this morning, I was like, did I meet Jeff at the Vancouver Ville School? Like, I almost feel like I've known you from before that. For whatever reason, we just always got along. And Jeff as a filmmaker, and he has a film that he is almost he's been spitting distance of picture lock on that he's working on right now that he's killed himself to make, which I'm so happy for him.

1:26 What is what is your movie? Can you tell the listeners what it's about? Humilits like a one location horror movie, kind of a fun play on an urban legend about young girls trying to get followers and this ghost that takes vengeance on people if they if you're abusing your phone too much. It kind of plays into that theme and as ghost hunters, and it's kind of fun mystery kind of story. Yeah. I probably did well. No, I Annihilation too. It's uh we it's funny. Audience can't see this because this is an audio medium. But I'm wearing a coat, like I'm in Vancouver in like September during the rainy season in Los Angeles. It's been cold here for so long. Remind me, Jeff, you're you're in um what where are you in Canada? Vancouver? You are you are in Vancouver? Yeah?

2:24 Yeah, yeah, yeah, God, I love Vancouver. I remember we met you in uh yeah, Vancouver Film School in twenty ten and it was like one class we watched a movie together. It was a French film of camera what it was called in the same like auditorius little auditorium room, and before it started, you're like, okay, what are the rules and commentary people trying to meet any whatever, And it was such like a fun uh not really does that or kind of chemson, but it was such a fun kind of thing you did on a bunch of movie lovers, movie geeks gettinggether watch in the movie. Yeah, I can't help myself. Um, I h you know, it's funny. This shows you, you know, we both know how difficult it is to make a film and then also how difficult it is to get people to like that movie. And I thought it was fascinating that, despite the fact that you and I are good friends, we have widely opposing taste, it was actually very difficult for us to find a movie that we both fell passionately about to discuss. And ironically enough, that movie was Annihilation, which is one of the as I rewatched it, top five weirdest mainstream movies ever made. Yeah, it's definitely open to interpretation.

3:32 Yeah, what you just said. But how being not connecting with certain movies. I thought about that a lot lately. That's fascinating, how like even a movie can be quote unquote great. Maybe a person doesn't connect to it and it's like who is one right or wrong? Or what is that? And it's like, it's interesting how we're so influenced by our backgrounds and what's kind of shaped us to what we'll connect with and what we'll connect with or at the time in our lives kind of thing. Yeah, it was. It was actually a great movie to watch again because on the first watch you're so like knocked out by its strangeness. You're it's almost like you need a second watch just to kind of wrap your head around it. And there's so much to talk about with it. I think it really is, especially with the benefit of time. I feel like Annihilation is almost like what we hoped that the streaming revolution would bring about, more movies like that, where it's like, you know, this strange, bold, you know, but not small, like a big, strange, bold movie, very like distinctive.

4:41 And I don't think that's really happened. I think if we if that movie came out today and it was like a Netflix original movie, we'd be like, Wow, this is like one of the better original streaming movies in many years. For whatever reason, I think that we just haven't had movies like this that much, unless it's like an A twenty four film or something like that. But even I think it was. I was so impressed by rewatching it, really I was. And and one thing I want to talk to you about. Its interesting, you say, like our backgrounds and how they affect how we process stuff. So there's a moment earlier in the movie, and I and again, I was so impressed with the setup of the movie, which the first like fifteen minutes of this movie are incredible. Earlier in the movie, we meet now apartment. Her husband has been missing for a long time, and she's in her house and she's sad because he's missing, and then he sort of just walks into the house and they have this Crosby Stills Nash song playing helplessly hoping, and it's so I thought it was so effective. I remember I get goose once every time I watch it, the way that they played that music and how it incorporates with the scene.

5:48 But you're Canadian. I don't know if like that that song means anything to you or you connect to it anyway, Like, what was your reaction to that moment? I mean, I guess big Neil young Fen when I think back the first time I watched it, all the stroat for me. I watched at Christmas time a few years ago, and ironically and was just how beautiful the production design and art was and the theme of um self destruction, how people like don't die, they're not killed, like we literally self destruct. We will find a way biology will find a way to kill ourselves to self destruct. That blew me away. I was like, Wow, I never had that thought before. That's fascinating. Um, your question about the music on that scene, I don't remember picking up on that. Um, yeah, I think that when over my head, I missed that part.

6:42 But yes, yeah, Natalie Portman is such a great actress man so all like the little all the beats and a little beach he nails. It feels so like something's there's a tension there that's not an organic tension or normal with the relationship. Something something's different there. Yeah, that feeling is present through the entire movie, that just something is wrong. I was the rewatch It was really noticeable to me. I think that my memory of the film was that it was very artsy FARTZI And when you rewatch it, you see that the first eleven This is what happens in the first eleven minutes of this movie. Natalie Portman's husband's missing for a year. He returns home, he can't remember anything, He has like a seizure, and ambulance goes to take him to the hospital. A swat team pulls over the ambulance and abducts him and Natalie Portman. And that's the first eleven minutes of the movie. And then right after that, she learns about this meteor that hit this area and there's a shimmering barrier around it that keeps expanding, and everything they sent into it never comes back except for Oscar Isaac, who is now dying. And maybe if Natalie Portman goes in there, she can figure out what's killing him and cure it. And that's the beginning of the movie. Who is not watching the movie after that set up? Yeah, what a great setup. That's a million dollars setup. Even to I still remember the few minutes in the music, the acoustic guitar, acoustic guitar plucking on the asteroid coming to hit

8:13 the lighthouse. This like really nice pretty beach lighthouse. What a cool contrast. He would think he would be acoustic guitar music is so unexpected there you'd think would be some sort of sci fi music or something aggressive or reretning. It's almost like a peaceful, organic, biological sound. I don't know. That's why I would interpret that it's such an intrastart an artistic choice too, because it's such like an opposite, ironic choice. It seems like so much of the most interesting art is always like it's like contradictory or contrary. It's not it's might expect it. It's such an that's still I still remember that it was so unexpected and such a beautiful, cool kind of movie magic moment.

8:56 Yeah. I think that's a great point because a lot of the movies like that where so for example, like once they go into the shimmer, right, they go in, and you're expecting the obvious way to do it would be an immediate crazy thing that they see or something right, But instead she I think she has a dream about cheating on her husband, and then she wakes up in the tent and she gets out of the tent and they're like, we've been in here for four days, and the only reason they know that is because they can see how much food they've eaten, but none of them has any memory of what's happened in those four days. And it's so scary, Like it's so discomforts you. Right, it's just not you're thrown off constantly by like the choices that they make. It's just not what you expect it to be. Yeah, you made a good point there, man, of I guess in the writing or what it came down to was it's unexpected. The whole movie sort of feels unexpected. It takes little right turns, we think it's going to go straight. So many movies these days don't do that over perfect. This movie could have been her all the mistiques it could have made it. I think it made so many interesting choices, and it feels so full of energy. So movies like kind of expected, there's like this so little energy to them, but this movie feels so full of energy. Just watching it, you don't know what's going to happen.

10:20 Anything could happen sort of in this movie. Well yeah, I mean especially once. So the first couple of beats is they killed this crocodile, they discovered the crocodile has shark teeth, and then they find the video of Oscar Isaac's team and it shows Oscar cutting a guy open and his intestines are moving around like they're in like a swimming pool, like a like a worm like squirming around his body. And then they have the bear with the human female voice, which is seriously one of the scariest things I've ever seen in a movie in my life. I remember the first time I saw it how it profoundly upset me, and it was it was I think that what's so amazing about it is the sound design, because when you hear that idea and it's like, oh, there, but it's like talking with like a woman's voice.

11:09 Like if you remember when they did Antichrist with Lars one Treer and they had the fox and the fox said like, I don't remember what he said. It took so the fox said something and into Christ and it played. People said it played almost funny, and I think that was the danger of this idea, But when you watch in the movie, there's nothing funny about it. It is like unholy is so upsetting hearing that bear and her voice coming out, it's so fah, Yeah, there's something. Yes, it's definitely creepy. Has it nails that creepy element. I think so much of like what makes things creepy is when it's kind of similar but different. It's like you don't know, you don't know what it's gonna move, how it's gonna move. Like zombies were scary the first few times, but everyone knows how they're kind of gonna move now, see it's expected. But if it's something new and different, and even if like it's even scary, you don't know how to react to something, like if you're supposed to laugh for be terrified. And yeah, that bear is with the woman's voice. I guess who the voice of the woman who had just killed the scientists who lost their daughter. Uh, yeah, that's so And you feel like you're so in the mote moment with Nellie Parlaman on the other actresses. It's such a cool scene it plays at the Bear. I mean, they do such a great job of like continually upping the ante of just fucking creeping you out, like just you know, it's like the they start small and it just keeps getting bigger and bigger and bigger. And I looked up the plot of the book

12:39 because I wanted to know I had read that Alex Garland had really kind of like taken it his own way, and if you look up the plot of the book, it's way different. I mean there's pieces that are in that are there, but it's clearly like he's doing his own thing. Um, he said. I think I read an interview he said something the effect of he wanted to he read the book and then like did not look at it again and then just did his adaptation, which I thought was a really interesting way of doing it. Yeah, what he does. Yeah, it's I mean, it's such a great setup to go into. Um. I haven't read the books at helment in that, but just yeah, a group of scientists, of female scientists, all different specialists, um, physicists, biologists, uh uh, paramedic another one, all going into this like it's almost like going to another planet, another looking at another investigating another type of biology.

13:41 Um, and it can just refract or mutate off of them. It's such like a million dollars setup, man, genius. It's there's so much you can do with it, That's what you said. The movie feels like it has so much energy. It feels like it's bursting at the seems like it feels like we're we're just scratching the surface of a world that is way more expansive, and there's just you could you could have a whole show that was said in that world. Yeah, you know, pretty easily. Yeah, that's too It almost feels like it could be a lot more. It's almost too bad. It's it's so interesting, like even how it likes some of the stuff when they're with the guy's dead body in the pool that's half sucked, oh yeah, hell yeah, and how it's like it's very threatening but also beautiful, like the flowers. It's so like sort of like it's violent and beautiful. It's such an interesting contrast, really cool, very the Last of Us. If you've seen The Last of Us, a lot of stuff in there is like that, with the fungus growing people on fucking yeah um and then the absolutely insane just what the fuck ending? I remember again, Sometimes you have movies where maybe just I'm always tired, I don't know, but sometimes I'll be watching a movie and let's say I'm like like kind of like getting sleepy for whatever reason, and then you get to the end and something happens. It's so strange and you're like, did I actually watch that or did I dream it? And that's how I felt with the end

15:13 of this movie. It's so fucking weird, and it's still I still don't really know exactly what it means, but I like I like that I don't know what it means, and I like that it forces me to kind of puzzle it out. Obviously, spoiler alert, we're gonna talk with the end of this movie, although frankly, I don't even know how to spoil it because I couldn't really explain to you exactly what happens. That's fascinating you say that nodding off a bit, because I've seen it three times, and I like, I've knodded off a little bit every time, even when I'm not tired, even like I'll just start to Bob Bob apples for like a second or two. Okay, what did I miss or something? And yeah, like the pacing just sloges right down and then it not that it's a bad thing, but um, it's interesting. It plays it like into the kind of the theme of the movie, how you're not exactly sure what you saw or not exactly sure how to interpret things. Maybe mayberet as well. Oh well, but I think it becomes increasingly dreamy the longer that it goes.

16:15 Right at the beginning, it's very plot and stuff is happening and you and it's like very clear what's going on. And then the middle section is showing you the promise to the premise of all this crazy shit that happens in this thing. And then the last section is where it's just like what it feels very subjective, right, we're sort of just with Natalie Portman. She finds Jennifer Jason Lee's character and that's a whole crazy thing where she like emmolates or whatever the hell happens with her. And then there's the the being that is created like in her image, which it's funny. I had this memory. It's interesting, had time plays tricks on you. I had this memory that Natalie Portman and the thing that turns into her memory like had like a dance dance revolution, dance battle, like that was my memory of it. But that's not it's that, it just it just shadows for movements for a little while, and yeah, it's so weird. And then the grenade and you're just I think that the ambiguity of it, the surreal quality of it is very much an art film kind of ending. Um, but the stuff that comes before that is not like that, so it's almost like it changes genres going into the third act of it. Yeah, that's fascinating. Uh.

17:33 Yeah, when when it takes the biological form, takes her form and like mimics her movements for like a minute and they kind of go around and falls and mimics her feels so like I just remember thinking it was almost like too, like Kubrick asked, like two thousand and one or a Yeah, I don't know why I thought that, but it feels like it's interesting. It takes another turn where it doesn't just assume that alien form is hostile. That it's could be. It's just there to observe or to interact with humans, and there's no I thought that was interesting. It's not just like black and a white. It's gray. So much of reality is gray. It's not exactly black and white, and that it yeah, plays with that. Yeah, definitely open to interpretation. The right to the end with right to their shout, to their eyes and looking different. But that that little part where it mimics her form, I thought was fast and it was such a cool, um interesting little spin on things, and that's how it feels the whole.

18:38 It doesn't feel like the Aly life forma is houst hostile. It feels great, beautiful, and those hostile elements to about it's not like it's black and white um. And also the running kind of thread of infidelity, like that, I'd forgotten how prominent it was. That at the very beginning, there's the guy she's like at the school or whatever, and he's like, hey, it's been a year, and he tries to hold her hand, and then we find out that she slept with that guy while she thought that Oscar Isaac was dead, presumably, and then at the end she tells Oscar Isaac, You're not Kane, are you? And he says, I don't think so. And I thought it made me think of I think this was Chris Rock. Chris Rock is a Stamps special where talks about cheating on his wife and how you know the reason that people cheat on their spouses they want something new. But then when you go back to your spouse because of the infidelity, you've changed them and they've become something new to you. Like it.

19:38 They become like a new person almost, And I thought that's almost kind of what we saw here is that you know, she had this affair, it affected her relationship, and now she sort of reunited with him, but not really, it's not really him. I thought that was all. There's something there with infidelity again that you get. This is like, I feel like this is probably a big like film, school paper movie, because you could talk about this all day long and come up with any interpretation you wanted and probably find a way to support it. Yeah, there's many elements to the film that are very open ended. I guess my interpretation was that he was changed in alien or the other life format taken him. I guess because the eye shouts to his eye, Oliver's eyes being different. Even then if like you said, it would be interesting too because that's like this the self destruction theme I thought was so cool. And how all the scientists are all one was a big time drug user, the other one were they they all head forms of big time baggage in their lives. But that was fascinating, man, fascinating right to the end. Just how even whoever you look at people or life, it finds a way to kind of screw up, even even if you has the best intentions it'll find a way to self destruct.

21:08 Um, fascinating. Man, I'm still thinking about that. I don't know what to make of that. That's just I've never thought of it like that, of life like that a brilliant I wanted to almost like quickly kind of like power rank Alex Garland's career because he's done a lot of stuff that's sort of like circling this and I'm gonna just quickly give you like a Alex Garland things, and then I want to talk about if this is the best thing that he's done to date. So The Beach Sunshine, twenty eight days later DEVS, which is an FX series, Annihilation X Machina, and then he made a movie called Men in twenty twenty two. Do you think that the best one of all matter? I would put it right up there with X X makin it feels like more relevant, like every day with all the all the teams, Like every month in twenty twenty three, there's like major tech breakthroughs like major um X mackin with the whole term test and the robot stripping him basically not to reck with if anyone who wasn't seeing this or X MAC and I definitely put that like top of your list, and those are like must seem X Mackin is like a must see film. I was saying, yeah, and I know everyone Annihilation is right up there. Uh uh.

22:34 X Mackin is like the nineteen eighty four Man of and like that type of film where it's like everyone should see it because it's so relevant. It's going to be relevant for everyone. Um yeah, what an interesting time to be alive dance. Yeah. I think, you know, when you look at his like filmography, I think if you look at a movie like Sunshine, for example, um, I think that there's been films where it's like he didn't completely get all the elements to work together. Like Sunshine is a really interesting movie. There's a lot of really great qualities. Has been criticized for an abrupt shift in the third act. You know, I think overall I liked I liked that movie a lot, but I don't think it's as good as this movie. I don't think it's even close, frankly, And I think that if you look at you know, like I try to watch Dev's, I found it a bit cold, Like I didn't really connect to it emotionally, which I think is why I didn't end up finishing it. Obviously, the Beach sort of famously maligned. I think that, you know, that movie is not considered necessarily a great movie, although you know, I haven't revisited in a long time and I didn't see men. Did you see men? I haven't seen Man. I thought of yellok, you just said with them sort of disconnected way through about the beach, and one eight days later was like, so there was brilliant man and I sort of kind of lost connect when I kind of got to the compound and there was a bit more like turning on themselves and like the the rape stuff was kind of I don't know, it was less so much less interesting than the zombies. But

24:07 yeah, definitely definitely a guy worth watching. Definite has some cool ideas that he's playing with in films. For sure. I think that where I would say that if you look at the body of his work, where I have more difficulty with it is when it is a little bit colder emotionally. And I think that that's why I mentioned the Crosby Stills song right, it was like, because it's so warm right at the beginning of that movie with Natalie Portman when she's in the house and the song is playing and oscar Isaac comes back and she's so overwhelmed to see him, and her reaction is so emotional, and so it has a real basis in something emotional that I thought really connected. Yeah, there's some shots of her, I think in the bedroom and around the beginning of the movie where she looks like very I don't really describe it, but like very like beautifully motherly, like obviously very beautiful actress, but she looks like very um patient, kind warm, like very warm support a very like um open. I don't know if organic is the word, but very like if I were to like look at a picture of motherly, how she looks in the futures is how is how she I would describe as motherly, like very beautiful and warm and accepting and not like she'll be your fancy clothes are like wealth or luxury, very like organically motherly, right,

25:42 She's she's sort of yeah, she's very approachable. The way that Hit they've presented her is in such a way that because Natalie Portman can totally play I see and distant, and she's not playing that at all, especially in the flashbacks where they show the like positive times in her relationship with ascar Isaac, where they're sort of like in bed and you know, having a positive moment together. I think that the I feel like Annihilation is him putting all the pieces together, right. He's got the weird sci fi stuff that's in all of almost all this stuff. He's got the kind of third act detour, but I think it actually works in this one or maybe some of the other films that didn't work quite as well. And he has that emotional grounding that makes us care so that we can then engage in the wild interesting ideas.

26:27 I have to revisit x Machia. I'm trying to remember. I definitely liked it. I want to, you know, his movies. He is a great example of a guy where you should like revisit his movies every five to ten years, because his movie is definitely reward like repeated viewings. They don't they don't get everything the first time. I think, yeah, Annihilation him, I would, yeah, say he's a great film. I'm sure to last twenty years. I'm sure to last a long time. I'm not sure how long. Maybe to lastly any humanity, it's uh yeah, I don't know, just so interesting, such an interesting movie on the theme of self destruction and some other life form being so beautiful and violent or destructive and is different and then like trying to observe humanity. Humanity. Whenever we see the movies usually they're very like black and white or albough what hostility and violence.

27:26 This seems so much more gray and interesting. X MAC and A Yeah, just um sort of usual suspects kind of set up. I don't know how to say too much for the like, but it's such a brilliant take on like the Turing Test and knowing how and how to interact with AGI and the danger of it, how it can manipulate us once it knows how human desires. It has the game play, and it's just how is it going to get there? And demons are all sort of uh, we all have her flaws or desires, So it's the once it figures that out, not I mean that's the future of Yeah, we're like we're like two weeks from X mocking being real, Like that's happened like for the next episode of this podcast. Um, well, I think that kind of covers it. I think certainly we would both agree that Annihilation I would say has, if anything, has aged to where it's I hold it and higher esteem now than I probably did back then. I think I back then it was oh, what an interesting movie. Now it's like, oh, this, could we have a movie like this again? Like, I don't know, I feel like cinema in general has degraded a bit, particularly because of the streaming stuff, and I don't I can't remember the last movie that I saw that made me feel the way Annihilation made me feel. Yeah, that's a good point.

28:56 There's like some movies you watch and it's like any emotion you kind of get out of it, and when viewing it any intellectual stimulation or ideas, you kind of think about it for a little bit. Okay, you figured out then. But this movie, there's like it sets up so many great questions. Yeah, and there's some of like the movie match for the emotion still feels fresh when you watch it again and steal you know what's happening a second or through time, but it doesn't feel like a sterile or kind of old. Uh. Yeah, so many interesting ideas and emotion to it. Yeah, definitely say it's a great film. Yeah, it's a staggering piece of work. Um, okay, well, that is the show for today.

29:51 Jeff, is there anywhere people can follow you Instagram? Just my name Jeff Schallenberg probably the lamest handle. What's What's? The movie called Amarosa should be out sometime in um late twenty twenty three, twenty twenty four. Awesome man, looking forward to it. Well, thank you so much for coming on the show. That is the podcast for today. As always, if you're enjoying the show, please throw us a five star rating on Apple Podcasts. That is the best way you can support the podcast. You can write a written review too, if you're feeling extra generous that I'll do like a backflip. We really appreciate that, and subscribe for a future episodes. Until next time, by h