Author Archives: Diego Crespo

Change is a scary thing. Evolution in our brain’s synapses, physical growth or decay as part of our natural human state, succumbing to our surrounding environments or circumstances. Alex Garland’s Annihilation continues his career long fascination with closing people off from an outside world and turning them into something else entirely. This can be found most prominently in his directorial work, Ex Machina and his unofficial directing credit on Dredd, but it’s also a thematic through-line on his writing work from 28 Days Later to Sunshine. His writing puts protagonists with a problem through metaphorical meat-grinders with few moments of solace. A viciousness that permeates every line of dialogue until the closing frames. His protagonists look back on the experience as something horrifying but something that made them ultimately stronger. But Garland has found another angle in his directorial work. What if he put them through severe changes in Ex Machina and Annihilation, and it wasn’t clear whether or not coming out the other side was any better? What if our perception of change was fluid and our understanding of it was void?Continue reading “ANNIHILATION: States of Change”