What are the implications of the movie’s final scenes—Lena’s dance/battle with the being that reflects her and her conversation with “Kane”? The slides address questions about destruction and transformation in the movie. The movie isn’t specific about Lena’s transformation in area X, but what do you see as one or two possible changes wrought by the experience? How is she a different character at the end of the film than at the beginning?
5 thoughts on “Annihilation–(Group 1)”
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To me the final scene reveals that Lena has “annihilated herself” as she intended to do by going on the virtual suicide mission that was entering the shimmer. All of the women on the expedition had some hardship which made them feel they had nothing to live for. Lena had incredible guilt over her affair, and going into the shimmer was her going toward a final act of self-destruction. The final scene with Kane makes it seem as though Lena has been not just mentally but physically changed by her experience in the shimmer. Both she and Kane are new people. In some ways this could be a good thing. They could start over and forget the affair and problems in their marriage. In other ways it could lead to more destruction. Are they so changed that they’re virtual strangers now? Their awkward hug at their reunion at the end of the film makes it seem as though they are. I also wonder if Lena will continue to change the longer she is outside of the shimmer; or if changes that happened already will make themselves seen. Will she develop weird physical ailments like other people did? Will she have trouble connecting with humans now that she is some alien-filled life form (or something of that nature – I have no idea what she is now)?
I think the implications of the final scenes are that Lena has become part of her environment in the Shimmer enough to “understand” it in a way to react to it and respond to it. I think the dance/battle she has with the reflective being demonstrates the amount she’s learned about the Shimmer– at first, she’s scared and confused and hurt, but realization dawns on her and she understands how to move with the being to cause its destruction. It recapitulates the learning she did previously outside of the lighthouse. I think that adaptation to the environment is a big change about her, and it provides her with more calm in the face of danger or confusion. Another change she has is a physical one: Though nothing is an obviously evident change, we see Lena’s eyes shimmer like the colors of Area X and we understand that internally she has physically changed. I presume that “later on” she will develop more obvious physical changes, as her traveling companions did. Hers may show differently than theirs because of her different relationship to the environment, maybe in ways that don’t compromise her “humanness.” Another assumption I have about how different she is is that I think Lena will be more withdraw socially. She never seemed particularly social, but now she is rearranged biologically in a way that does not allow her comfort in the sameness of other humans, because they’re no longer the same.
I feel like there are a lot of similarities between Annihilation and “Houston, Houston” and how they attempt to portray the theme of destruction as a form of creation/transformation. Both pieces of media are trying to portray how the destruction of humanity (or just men in the case of Tiptree’s story) might ultimately lead to the creation of something more prosperous and beautiful in its absence. This is especially evident when Jessie (I think that’s her name) gives herself up to The Shimmer and becomes one of those human-flower-hybrid-statues.
Although, I am a bit confused about one of the final scenes, the dance/battle between Lena and the being that reflects her. I think that by the end of the movie, Lena has made a concession towards The Shimmer and is recognizing it not as destruction but instead transformation. This is evident when she corrects the guy in the hazmat suit questioning her. She says the being was not trying to attack her but instead seemed like it was simply imitating her, like it didn’t truly want anything. I thought this was interesting because yes the being did, for the most part, seem like it just wanted to copy and reflect her actions. But, it did feel like it had a malicious nature about it, especially when Lena attempts to run out the door. When she does this, the being runs up behind her slamming the door. She then tries to push back on the being and escape its hold. If the being-thing was actually just trying to reflect and understand her, it would not have resisted Lena’s attempts to escape. I’m still not sure why Lena ultimately accepts The Shimmer/The Being as non-destructive but what I have been going with in my head is the idea that humanity needs to make this same kind of concession towards how the world is being affected by the climate (which I assume the movie is partially about after reading the slides). If we want to come out the other side with any semblance of our humanity at all we have to realize and accept that we have gone too far to simply brute force resist these transformations using however many dozens of bullets were spilled into the alligator shark mutant. Humanity will change and become uncanny, but it’s the recognition of this inevitability that will lead us to some sort of retribution. I don’t know if that makes sense.
As Danny said, there is a question of which Lena came out of the Shimmer, and he is she the same person jut slightly changed from the experience or someone totally changed, almost to be wholly new? The idea of reflection here is really interesting, as though the shimmer is both a window and a mirror allowing Lena to see herself on more than one plane and to then embody those hidden aspects of herself on a greater search for wholeness. Does that mean she is still Lena? Or does that mean she is someone new? I do think it is interesting that she says the Shimmer was actually trying to create something new, that it isn’t a destructive force at all and this to me feels like the ultimate metaphor for death. Death is the ultimate creative force, because only from death and recycling can new seeds sprout. I think that in a dystopic world this is the only real answer to defeating anything or winning anything. There has to be a complete and entire collapse and rebirth. This is true I think for Lena herself, too.
I personally found the ending of the movie to be a little confusing at first, just because it was a little ambiguous as to which version of Lena comes out of the shimmer at the end of the movie, the original Lena or the double that is a reflection of her. However, after reflecting on the conversation with Kane, it seems clear that it is the double that came out, at least for Kane, and the camera shot at the end showed both of the characters eyes were shimmering, implying Lena changed as well. These scenes seem to indicate that both Kane and Lena were transformed by their battles with themselves in the shimmer.
I think some changes wrought by the experience in the shimmer is that Lena seems more understanding of her relationship with Kane, and of herself as well. This is supported by the fact that Lena and Kane genuinely hug at the end. The battle with her reflection in the shimmer I think allowed her to accept and understand her infidelity, which arguably could mean that the battle at the end in the Shimmer made Lena into a better person, or at the very least a person who has a deeper understanding of herself.