It was inevitable, given the brilliance of Das Experiment and Downfall, that their director, Oliver Hirschbiegel, would be shipped off to Hollywood. The question was: what would be the subject of the film? Both the Stanford Experiment and the last days of Hitler’s are subjects that resonate profoundly in our culture, where would he go next?
The answer is The Invasion (of the Bodysnatchers), the classic novel of Cold War paranoia, which has been updated by screenwriter Dave Kajganich to refer to the enemy within rather than any ideological enemy. The bodysnatchers are space bacteria which fuse with the genes of their hosts, leaving them their memories but stripping them of their egos. The result in America - where it soon reaches the upper echelons of society - is a peaceful, dull, united nation, a bit like how one might imagine Switzerland.
With the popularity of evolutionary psychology there is a growing belief that human nature is immutably violent, unequal, and atavistic. The hopes of the socialists of the last century, who believed that progress would somehow iron out the kinks in the soul, have been gradually eroded. A grotesque pragmatism has taken hold, with cynical invasions of countries to steal their oil, before holing yourself up in green zones well-protected from the swinish mobs outside.
The Invasion is thus an inversion of 28 Days Later, with a calm virus rather than a rage virus. And the thrills are derived from the uncanny feeling that such systematic, relentless calm produces in the populace.
It was during the filming of The Invasion that lead man Daniel Craig was offered the job of James Bond, which begs the question of why this film has been canned for so long? Well, the ending is horribly neat and tidy — Hirschbiegel isn’t really one for ambiguous endings — and the exposition of the plot is rather clunky. But overall The Invasion is a taut and interesting intellectual horror-scifi thriller that is well worth a look.
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Glad you said that. I like the look of it but everyone seems to have panned it. To the cinema!
You’ve missed it. And now there’s nothing on except Mr. Woodcock.