Life is never as clean and orderly as it appears at first. We are self-destructive creatures who look back on our memories as they refract through time. Yet what fundamentally makes us who we are comes from our biology, our society, our encoded genes, from complex systems that are beautifully simple at their heart. From a singular point, everything can multiply forever. We can derive the most complicated of systems from just a few equations. Annihilation is fractal cinema, an ever-repeating, ever-multiplying cycle from the simplest of foundations. It's about life, how existence can be pre-planned and copied, moulded and shaped. Time and memories need not be ordered, just connected. Corruptions of form are just a code typed in wrong. What contorted shapes do appear are betrayals, a betrayal of loyalty, a betrayal of nature. There's no reason why Annihilation would make sense, it's not even got a core that's tangible at all. It's the sort of film which is filled with bad moments but none of those moments matter when the film is taken as a whole. It's slow, contemplative sci-fi (my favourite genre) and a clear step-up from Garland's Ex Machina. It's the sort of film that doesn't explain itself, just shows us what it is. It shows us one person stretched across many bodies, a lifetime reborn because that's the ultimate simple cycle, created from almost nothing but forever lived out in our mind. Looking at oneself as a stranger and as yourself; we burn together, you and I.

2018 Ranked
Alex Garland Ranked
My Top Films of the 2010s
My Top Horror Films