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Alex Garlands work has long flirted with body horror: the fractal doppelgangers ofAnnihilation.
Domnhall Gleason slicing open his forearm, no longer sure if hes human or android, inEx Machina.
Now shes being traumatized all over again.
With exhaustion in her voice, she asks him what he wants from her.
I want your love, he says.
But while the sequence is charged with a panic-inducingwrongness, its imagery is based in human biology.
But so do vaginas when a babys head passes through them in mid-delivery.
The imagery also has cinematic precedents Garland wasnt consciously referencing.
The creatures long body expands and contracts, like theKaonashi, a.k.a.
No-Face, in Hayao MiyazakisSpirited Awayafter it gorges itself on bathhouse snacks.
Speaking of whatisthe metaphor here?
It seems like there should be one, given the amount of striking imagery throughout the film.
He becomes a reminder of the death that is necessary to feed new life.
(InMen, she first appears opposite the Green Man on a baptismal font.)
That its saying something true.
But what about the films most on-the-nose theme: the conflict betweenmen and women?
Heres where it all sort of falls apart.
Yes, all men, in other words.
But theres nothing else in these mens behavior to suggest theyre jealous of Harper.
But again, a question remains: Why Harper?
Has her encounter with these needy, desperate men drained Harper of her life force as well?
Or is she simply anticipating Rileys disbelief when she tells her what she saw the night before?
These contradictory, incomplete interpretations come to no definitive conclusion, leaving the viewer with more questions than answers.
