The (Im)Possibility of Adaptation in Alex Garland's Annihilation

The (Im)Possibility of Adaptation in Alex Garland’s Annihilation Emmanuelle Ben Hadj A 2018 article about Alex Garland’s science-fiction film Annihilation (2018) asks the question: “is Annihilation the first true film of the Anthropocene?”1 The answer is most likely no. The Anthropocene is a term created in 2000 by scientists Paul Crutzen and Eugene Stoermer to signify the importance of environmental change caused by humans. For decades, and even centuries, humanity has become a geological agent capable of reshaping planet Earth according to their own needs and desires. Our actions have altered the planet’s climate for the worse to the point of hindering the natural course of evolution. For this reason, scientists—though disagreements within the scientific community still exist—have felt the need to suggest the existence of a new geological era, the Anthropocene, that would follow the previous era of the Holocene. Selmin Kara coined the term “Anthropocenema” to talk about the trend of science fiction and other genre films depicting the consequences of anthropogenic actions on Earth.2 I would argue that it would be unfair to call Annihilation the first true film of the Anthropocene when the science fiction genre has been so prolific in tackling environmental disasters, with recent films such as Interstellar (Nolan, 2014), or older films like Andreï Tarkovski’s Stalker (1979) to which Annihilation is often compared. However, Alex Garland’s film certainly stands out in its refusal to compromise with humanity’s fate, hence its particularly negative and pessimistic representation of man. The new ecology of cinema that no longer hesitates to feature human-made disasters, as well as the creation of fictional alternate worlds for pleasure and escapism, could be read as a way to 1 Lewis Gordon, “Is Annihilation the First True Film of the Anthropocene?”, Little White Lies, March 13, 2018 (accessed January 23, 2020). https://lwlies.com/articles/annihilation-alex-garland-anthropocene- era/ 2 Selmin Kara, “Anthropocenema: Cinema in the Age of Mass Extinctions,” in Post-Cinema: Theorizing 21st- Century Film, eds. Shane Denson and Julia Leyda (Sussex, UK: Reframe, 2016), https://reframe.sussex.ac.uk/post-cinema/6-2-kara/ Period: Media and the Anthropocene (Issue 2, 2021) 77 cope with the frightening reality of climate change while at the same time ringing the alarm louder and louder. The growing interest in environmental humanities, an interdisciplinary area of research connecting environmental and ecological disciplines with the field of humanities, only reinforces the urgency to consider man as a participant in a larger ecosystem. The geological era of the Anthropocene and its consequences on the planet invite the necessary deconstruction of human centrism and exceptionalism where man acts as an all-powerful subject upon a subdued and objectified nature. Annihilation finds its place within the field of environmental humanities since the film plays with the sense of loss that has become prevalent in today’s world because of climate change and its consequent disasters: what used to be familiar has now become estranged and dangerous. Among the many science fiction movies of recent years using climate change as background, what makes Annihilation distinctive and worth analyzing is its depiction of the unapologetic disintegration of man at the cellular level, a transitional adaptation that will eventually lead to a new life form. Annihilation is the first volume of the Southern Reach Trilogy written by author Jeff VanderMeer. The two following books Authority and Acceptance were published back-to-back the same year in 2014. Director Alex Garland (who also directed Ex Machina [2014] and wrote 28 Days Later [2002]) adapted the first volume into a film released in February 2018. The film is only loosely based on VanderMeer’s novel: as Garland explains in interviews, he decided to write the screenplay based on his own memory of reading the book and his own interpretation of the story.3 In the end, the original novel and the film have little in common, as I will briefly develop later in this 3 Alex Garland explains: “And the most defining thing about [the novel] was its atmosphere; the specifics of plot were not as crucial. Tone was very important. I didn’t reread the book, which was a dreamlike, slightly hallucinatory novel. I did an adaptation of my memory of the novel, a slightly odd conceit.” Anne Thompson, “‘Annihilation’ Director Alex Garland Speaks out on Screwing with Genre and Studio Panic Attacks”, Indiewire, April 8, 2018 (accessed January 24, 2020). https://www.indiewire.com/2018/04/annihilation-director-alex-garland-devs-television-1201950154/ Period: Media and the Anthropocene (Issue 2, 2021) 78 article. For the purpose of my argument on the (im)possibility of adaptation, I will focus on the film rather than the written work. Garland’s loose filmic adaptation tells the story of an all-female team of scientists sent inside a mysterious energy bubble, the Shimmer, that formed along the coast and keeps expanding, threatening to engulf nearby cities. While the spectator witnesses an extraterrestrial impact at the beginning of the film, the characters have no idea what created the Shimmer, and even worse, the previous expedition teams didn’t make it back, but for the exception of one man who is now suffering from memory loss and organ failure. Once inside the Shimmer, the women discover an environment where strange mutations occur between human, fauna and flora. They will discover that the magnetic field of the Shimmer scrambles all DNA before rearranging it into new life forms. The film raises many questions including: what does it mean to be human if all DNA merges together to form new creatures? How willing and capable is humanity to adapt to a new environment where they no longer have the upper hand? The extraterrestrial force that landed in the Shimmer and triggered the mutations does not act as a destroyer, but as a transformer. The progressive and yet uncontrollable disintegration of the human body and psyche inside the Shimmer allow the concept of adaptation to be read through biological and psychological angles. If humans are well aware of being programmed to self-destruct at the cellular level with aging, the rapid mutation of human cells within the bubble opens the door to paranoia and dementia where the self becomes unrecognizable. While the open-endedness of the film offers multiple readings, I only choose to focus on the place of adaptation within Garland’s work and its reflection on contemporary society. Considering that the film is itself an adaptation, Gary Bortolotti and Linda Hutcheon’s article “On the Origins of Adaptation” that compares the notion of adaptation in biology and in culture will also prove useful to argue against the fidelity Period: Media and the Anthropocene (Issue 2, 2021) 79 discourse—the idea that adaptation is synonymous with imitation.4 Indeed, Annihilation confirms that adaptation is more accurately a form of replication with change. “We’re all damaged goods here” Unlike other recent films that only reemphasize human centrism by placing a hero or group of characters in a position to save the world, there is no Manichean hero or villain in Annihilation. The usual dichotomy—human versus alien—does not stand in the film: the alien force causing the mutations is far from being villainous since it transforms living beings beyond the categorization of human, animal or plant. Not only does the film reject the simplistic good versus evil binary, but it also twists the very concept of heroism because humans cannot be saved in the Shimmer. Instead, the conflict takes place within the self, in other words, within each character’s capacity to biologically and psychologically adapt to the new rules inside the bubble. To begin with psychological adaptation, each scientist in the expedition has a troubled backstory that threatens the collective wellbeing of the team and ends up altering their individual death in the Shimmer. The first part of the film anchors the characters in their own individuality, giving it a melodramatic undertone that will thankfully disappear with the thickening of the plot. The main protagonist Lena (played by Natalie Portman) is an ex-military biology professor, married to Kane (Oscar Isaac), the only survivor of all past expeditions. When the latter comes back with no memory and multiple organ failures, Lena makes the decision to join the newest expedition and hopefully understand what happened to him, saying “I owe him.” When the spectator is informed that Lena slept with another man while her husband was gone, the sacrifice for love turns more into a sense of duty riddled with guilt. The team leader, Dr. Ventress (Jennifer Jason Leigh), is a psychologist at the Southern Reach facility. Later in the film, we find out that she has terminal cancer. Anya (Gina Rodriguez) is a paramedic and former alcoholic. Cassie (Tuva 4 Gary R. Bortolotti and Linda Hutcheon, “On the Origin of Adaptations: Rethinking Fidelity Discourse and ‘Success’-Biologically,” New Literary History 38, no. 3 (2007): 445. Period: Media and the Anthropocene (Issue 2, 2021) 80 Novotny) is a geomorphologist who lost her daughter to leukemia. Finally, Josie (Tessa Thompson) is a physicist with a history of self-harm. As Cassie says early in the film: “we’re all damaged goods here.” Ventress eventually admits to profiling the team members when she explains that not only do all humans have self-destruction coded within them biologically, but also that many of them self-destruct psychologically. By selecting women with a troubled past, and, for some of them, with nothing to lose, Ventress minimized the high risk of the expedition which, she knew, was more of a suicide mission.

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