SCI FI PI

Starring Nicole Kidman, Daniel Craig
Director Oliver Hirschbiegel
Rated M
Released Feb 28


Ah, The Bodysnatchers. It's a classic idea that has perforated us since first appearing in Jack Finney's serialised book in 1954, and later as the novel, The Bodysnatchers, in 1956. It first appeared on film as Don Siegel's 1956 film, Invasion of The Bodysnatchers, was remade with tremendous success in 1978 by Phillip Kaufman, less successfully in 1993 by Abel Ferrara, and now the tale has been told yet again by Oliver Hirschbiegel, the German director of The Experiment and Downfall.

You may have heard the ruckus about this film. It's a bomb, a travesty, a disaster. A happy ending, how dare they? An anti-American diatribe masquerading as a film. The film has stirred up a hornet's next of opinion, with the end result seeming to say - don't see it.

Ignore all this. Go and see this movie.


Who farted?


If you are a Sci Fi fan of long-standing devotion, have seen all these previous movies, you will find it interesting. If you've never heard of the bodysnatchers, you will find it interesting. If your job somehow involves film, and you know how films are made, this film is even more interesting.

That's not to say the film is entirely successful. Far from it. But if you were told that the Hindenburg was just about to land in New Jersey, you'd still go out and have a look, no matter how bad the ending.

If you've not seen The Experiment or Downfall, then you could be forgiven in thinking that the director doesn't quite know what he's doing in The Invasion, whether he's building an elegantly crafted thriller out of seams of dread with profound philosophical points, or whether he's slapping together a Michael Bay-style chase movie with a happy ending.

If you've seen these two great films, then you know that Hirschbiegel does know what he's doing.


It was yooo! You farted!


One could speculate that producer Joel Silver, gunshy after the Wachowskis philosophised him out of a billion dollars by providing dense and unfathomable sequels to The Matrix, was unwilling to let some foreigner ruin a perfectly good Science Fiction blockbuster by making a film he was unable to understand.

The film was reshot, recut and a different ending was used, reducing a great deal of it to the level where an undereducated American theatre-goer would clap and cheer. Unfortunately, the jigsawing and rough hammering has thrown the film off kilter, and the result is unsatisfying, with pat moments and illogical cliches thrown in at the most inopportune moments. The ending is numbingly bad.

But, and this is a big but, if you're willing to pull out strands of pearls from a pile of straw, you'll find a fascinating film entwined within, filled with some of the most extraordinary themes in modern cinema. A true Science Fiction Classic, of Blade Runner quality.

There is an undeniable genius here that begs to be discovered. One can only hope that somewhere out there is the original director's cut, undamaged by the kind of mind that the film is actually talking about.

What kind of mind? A Commie? A McCarthyite? A Nazi? A Republican? A Democrat? A Couch Potato mind?

Yes. All of the above.


Hehe. It was me all along!


What seems to have been missed in many discussions of the bodysnatcher films is that they're about conformity, per se. Not any particular religion, political ideal or movement that uses conformity, but conformity itself. That moment, when we give up responsibility for our actions and hand it over, not to an individual, but just hand it, to anyone, just so we don't have to face up to what we do as individuals.

It is no surprise at all that a director whose previous films have delved deeply into the psychology of the 'how the hell did it happen' of the Nazi era, has made this film.

The film even goes so far as to make conformity as seductive as possible. In this case, world peace is on offer. And all you have to do is sleep. When you wake up, everything's fine. But your humanity will be gone. Your foibles, your constant battle between yourself and other people will be over, and you will no longer be a human being. You will be something, a plant, an insect, an evolved alien life form, but not human, which is expressly stated in the film. And by not being human you no longer have a moral possibility, you are a machine that will kill for the greater good, no matter what, because that is the emotionless end result of humans that only employ logic. It's the kind of thinking that allows people to murder millions.

That is the point of this movie, buried somewhere underneath its own wreckage. It's a point that needs to get through.


Run from the smell!


Every time someone has said 'these are the rules', or said 'would you like fries with that', or you've received a blank-faced stare from a bank clerk unable to compute your unusual or atypical request, they are displaying the tendency towards the same kind of mind that followed Communism to disaster, that murdered millions in the Holocaust and now accepts the slaughter of thousands in Iraq for no other reason than habit.

Enough about all that, what about the actual film?

In this version of the story, Nicole Kidman is psychiatrist Dr Carol Bennell (changed from the local doctor and health inspector Bennells in previous versions). She's divorced with a son, and runs a neat and tidy practice in a neat and tidy world. Order and calm and control are her watchwords. Her 'friend who wants to be more than a friend', Daniel Craig doesn't have a chance of getting past first base. There's only room for one love in her life, and that's her son.

After a shuttle crash strews wreckage across the US, strange behaviour is reported, and there is an announcement that a strain of 'flu is going around. Of course, as you suspected, that's not entirely the case. There's a wonderfully sly comment on the way governments deal with their guinea pigs er citizens in the way that the aliens gain control. Dr Bennell is told by her patient Wendy Lenk (Veronica Cartwright, who appeared in the 78 version) that 'my husband is not my husband'.

Nice line. The fun begins.


"SBD! SBD! In a tunnel of all places! Run!"


Soon the epidemic spreads and the scientific jargon begins. Alien spores enter the blood stream, incubate during REM sleep and then recombine the DNA to create a new human being, with exactly the same memories and habits, but devoid of emotions and with one overriding goal - the collection of all humans into one community, the eliminating those who will not conform or are unable (due to even more medical jargon) to be physically changed by the alien virus.

These new people don't sweat or behave naturally, they don't get upset when thwarted, they don't waste time doing anything except achieving their goals. They are creepy, unreal, and you cannot reason with them. (You can insert any of your inter-office jokes about your yuppie de jour right here.) To escape detection, you've got to act like everyone else. Freak out, and they get you. This is the real meat of the first half of the film, and great fun.

As the film progresses, it becomes a film about the one against the many, the individual who knows her own thoughts, against 'the other'. An entire globe where we really just don't know how those other people really really think.

Unfortunately the film does get into trouble as it skids into the third act, but if you're forgiving, and you really like to see a sleep-deprived Nicole Kidman running around in a wonderbra (and who doesn't?), then you'll stay to the end. As she must remain more calm, her demeanour becomes less so, her world of control becomes one of chaos and unspeakable dread. As she begins the film the perfect superstar of flawless beauty, she ends it haggard and bruised. That her performance has gone unsung is a tribute to her talent and track record. Any other actor doing the same thing would be lauded. We expect Kidman to be this good. But her role is the only one that has meat on it. The only love story is hers and her son, and it seems that any other stories have been hobbled in favour of keeping the pace fast.


The fart lingered, waiting for them outside.


As pure escapist entertainment, with chills and chases, this is a high budget, beautifully photographed mitigated disaster. Mitigated by excellent moments, doomed by hamfisted rejigging, a delicate spiderweb of dread has been swept away by a Hollywood bludgeon, but the themes of the movie, the questions that it raises, will linger on long after you've left the theatre.

How many times have you been asked 'what are you thinking'? - and how many times have you lied? If you were a pod person, no one would ever know. Look across the desk, the table, the pillow, and behind the eyes lurk a mystery. Thoughts of love or murder are equally hidden. That is at the genesis of our fear of the pod people, but this film takes it further. It pits logic against emotion.

At the deepest, deepest level, that is what this film is about. Love is not logical, but that's what makes us human. When logic is all you have, then a human life has a dollar value. Slavery, and murder for profit are the result. And that is the end of us all.



Oh Fluffy, why can you not remain upon your leash?