We’ve already seen that the goal of District One was never to keep people safe. Don’s infection sparks a second outbreak which exposes the sinister priorities in the district’s infrastructure. Having carried the virus asymptomatically, she transmits it to him. In one of the most eviscerating moments offered by a zombie film, Don shares a fateful kiss with Alice. Even the brief comfort of finding their mother alive, a counterpoint to Jim’s tragic discovery in the original, is disrupted by the physical and emotional scars of her own survival. The siblings find Alice in their old home after they sneak away from the district. When he is not on screen, the chilling gaze is suggested by the film’s cinematography. The motif of all-seeing eyes recurs throughout, a burden passed down to Andy. A permeating sense of doom befalls each frame. When all hell breaks loose, we see this tension build to a nauseatingly horrific conclusion.Īs the film introduces the possibility of eradicating the rage virus via hereditary traits in the siblings, there is hardly a chance to savor a hopeful outcome. The soldiers watching them yearn for combat. Each resident is a target first and foremost. Unlike the ease with which the found family unit in 28 DAYS LATER coalesced, neighborly gestures are all but discouraged here. In the district high rises, every person is viewed as a liability under the gaze of cameras and restless snipers. Often in zombie films, survivors pull resources to recreate a semblance of normality in the broken spaces around them. Yet, the unnerving way people have adapted to life in the heavily armed and surveilled zone is a deliberate subversion on the part of the filmmakers. The US army provides shelter in District One at a cost that runs contrary to the interests of a truly free society. And the flaws in their new residence are menacingly pronounced. They are white British citizens, but their new status as refugees alienates them from the country they once called home. As Tammy (Imogen Poots) and Andy (Mackintosh Muggleton) arrive for biometric processing the scene evokes a complicated political reality. In 28 WEEKS LATER, the main focus of the story is Don’s children, for whom he arranges entry into the designated “ safe zone” of District One using his privilege as caretaker. Where Boyle affirms the perseverance of collective action in the face of struggle, Fresnadillo delivers a grim warning against complacency. Fresnadillo opens the concept of an England under siege to the terrifying new implications of world powers ensnared by draconian measures of national security. Ultimately, it solidifies the good nature of people working together to rebuild in a post-apocalyptic scenario.īoyle’s direction is instrumental to establishing a palpable disaster from which humanity rises in defiance of oppressive social programming. A harrowing realization that the most evil parts of society (embodied by hyper-militarism and fueled by elite panic) exist to sustain themselves by tearing a future away from the rest of us. It also presents the unavoidable dangers of relinquished freedoms under the pretense of safety.ĭanny Boyle and Alex Garland’s 28 DAYS LATER (2002) is a solemn portrait of the mundanity we take for granted succumbing to a violent disease. The ensuing narrative further challenges prejudice against the individual for the failures of a governing body. The infected trailed behind the boy who was taken in as a refugee, but the initial outbreak and the lack of an efficient response to control its spread are not his fault. With its opening sequence, Fresnadillo steadfastly lays down the central concerns of his film. He escapes but is never free from the torment of leaving his wife behind. Running for his life, Don manages to fend off a horde of infected pouring in from the hills in the periphery. Before she is pulled into the abyss behind her, Alice’s searing glance burns a hole through the celluloid. The last we see of Alice, for the moment, is her petrified face in a window after Don shuts a door on her and the child to save himself. Its grainy, underexposed photography nonetheless renders each attack vivid. For Alice, who is uncertain whether and when she will see her children again, the choice is simple.įollowing the child’s introduction, the house is swarmed by the infected. A sudden knock on the door ironically disrupts a heated conversation about what separates “us” from “ them.” The question about letting the panicked child inside is heavily debated. In the midst of the first rage virus outbreak, Alice and her husband Don (Robert Carlyle) join a small group of survivors for dinner. This framing is purposeful, asserting an omnipresent judgement. Juan Carlos Fresnadillo’s 28 WEEKS LATER (2007) opens on the heterochromatic eyes of Alice (Catherine McCormack) as she strikes a match in a pitch-black room.
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