07.01.2010

Apocalypse: cop-out or engagement

Jim Moody reviews 'The day of the Triffids' (BBC1, December 28-29, Roland Emmerich (director), 2012 general release; Nick Copus (director)

Apocalyptic science fiction has been a staple of cinema for decades, though seldom rising above the level of sensationalist and thinly spread suspense, more or less evidently contrived. At the end of last year, two films represented extremes of this sub-genre of sci-fi. One was released to international pizzazz and fanfare and the other, though so far limited to a two-episode airing on domestic television, was watched by over five and a half million in Britain.

In the three years from 2009 to the year of 2012’s title, a cabal of secretive government representatives and billionaires makes preparations to save themselves at the expense of the rest of humanity, since that appears to be what it takes. Having stolen wealth on an enormous scale, they are sure they can buy survival from catastrophe. They are completely alienated in their social isolation.

Shaky science provides the MacGuffin that gives the film its raison d’être. It may be a suspension of disbelief too far. Apparently, very infrequent solar flare maxima have produced extreme neutrino bombardment of Earth, but somehow these neutrinos have evolved into something altogether nastier that is cooking the planet’s core like a microwave. This causes the Earth’s mantle and crust to become unstable, and all hell breaks loose. Putative scientists are purportedly calling it ‘crustal displacement’. Governments are clearly unable to do a thing about it.

While 2012 contains elements borrowed from Willy Wonka and the chocolate factory (1971), whereby spoilt brats come close to getting their comeuppance, less satisfying constituents take their inspiration from a series of clunker disaster movies. Outstanding among which have been, for example, The day the Earth caught fire (1961), Meteor (1979), Lifeforce (1985), Independence day (1996), Armageddon (1998), Crater of death (1998), Deep impact (1998), Post impact (2004), and Impact (2008). Clearly, 1998 was a nadir for the sub-sub-genre.

The scenario is trite. It is one that falls within the kind of science fiction that exculpates governments and states from any responsibility for the Earth’s parlous state. Audiences are nudged toward concluding that, as this (any?) disaster is clearly no-one’s fault, we all need to help each other, we are all in the same boat (or not, of which more later), etc.

Members of the plutocrat’s cabal in 2012 have, of course, not taken account of interference from the little guy, here represented by Jackson Curtis (John Cusack). Foolishly, they imagine that money buys all, reserving them places in megabuck arks capable of withstanding the gigantic tidal waves that will reach the peaks of the Himalayas. So everyone is not in the same boat, by any means. But in this Hollywood universe individuals can achieve anything by force of will. And so it proves, for Jackson and his gang of ordinary guys and gals do get aboard, by deft of cunning and true grit. This understanding of a universal ‘reality’ sees no point in collective action by humanity, however.

During Soviet times, some left literary critics drew sharp comparisons between the kinds of science fiction that came from the west, especially the USA, whose leading exponent of the genre was Isaac Asimov, and that from the USSR. Their premise was that the first usually concerned extrapolating capitalism and bourgeois mores (or lack of them) into the future or to other worlds, while the latter was supposedly more humanistic, as defined by Soviet apologists, though often executed in a sentimental and ultimately unconvincing manner. This expressed a partial truth, in that sci-fi does reflect the society it comes from. But more particularly nowadays, what gets made into the filmic behemoth, such as 2012, must reflect the rulers’ ideology, else where will its funds come from? Art house film this is not.

It is true that 2012 exhibits the crassness of riches, but its tilts at windmills are served by this sad knight and his assorted Sancho Panzas. No mass action here except that of maddened mobs, understandably desperate to get aboard the arks of salvation. The religious undertow continues to the end of the film, what with the prospect of the survivors of the deluge going to the promised land, which in this case is the continent of Africa. It is almost as if the righteous get their rapture through their faith in justice (at the hands of our current rulers!).

In political terms, the natural disaster that is portrayed occupies a space adjacent to the one where anthropogenic climate change sceptics seek refuge. Natural events so disruptive of human life such as that in 2012 can occur without any human agency. So maybe, think some, this climate change lark is similar - it could be just a result of the Almighty’s sense of humour. It is certainly not down to human activity. Without doubt, this line of thought, which 2012 opens up so expertly, makes it easier for those so inclined to deny that the planet’s ecosystem is being drastically altered by capitalism’s past and present depredations.

No matter that, as stated previously, this particular event’s causation and time span are incredible. Of course, as the leaked UN report at the end of the Copenhagen climate change conference showed, we are seeing presently a complex interaction that subsists in the biosphere, of which humanity and its social and economic system are integral parts. The cataclysm that awaits is not the stuff of stupefying non-science: it is human-made and it is what we can expect if world capitalism led by the USA fails to cut its CO2 emissions drastically, which is to say by at least 10 times the totally inadequate 3% proffered to date. We do not have to worry about the crust of the Earth anywhere near as much as the kind of society we put upon it.

More satisfying

The day of the Triffids is an altogether more satisfying apocalyptic sci-fi experience. Although lacking the massive expenditure on special effects of 2012, it manages to convey much more menace, combined with some awareness of social responsibility. Unlike 2012, The day of the Triffids engages and questions.

For those of us who have read John Wyndham’s original book of the same title published in 1951 or indeed have seen the first film version (1962), the gripping power of the storyline has always been important. In his novel, Wyndham suggests that Soviet bio-engineering has brought the Triffids into existence, but that they have then been accidentally released into the wild, where they have rapidly multiplied.

In the 2009 film version, Zaire is the point of origin for the Triffids, which are somehow able to spread beyond Africa in a matter of a few years. How they came to originate in Zaire is not explained, though. Nonetheless, this version sticks reasonably closely to the spirit of Wyndham’s novel, while updating the plot for the early 21st century.

Not completely eschewing the ersatz science so redolent in 2012, Nick Copus presents a corporate world farming Triffids for a fuel oil substitute that has solved the current climate change emergency. The main company involved in this exploitation, Triffidoil, has tens of thousands of farms, each with thousands of giant Triffids. Yet what is unexplained is how burning hydrocarbons produced by plants can possibly be any better than burning hydrocarbons from fossil fuel oil and gas. After all, hydrocarbons produce CO2 in similar proportions when burnt.

Plant biologist and Triffid specialist Bill Masen (Dougray Scott) gets stung by a Triffid, but after prompt treatment survives, though sporting a scar on his temple from the attack. Luckily for him, his treatment involves having his eyes bandaged for 24 hours - just at the time when brilliant meteor storms blind the overwhelming majority of the world’s population.

Broadcaster Jo Playton (Joely Richardson) also avoids blindness, thanks to a work assignment. Bill and Jo join forces. Surviving a plane crash, megalomaniac Torrence (Eddie Izzard) sees his opportunity to rule the UK - or at least part of London - and recruits a brutal force of armed men to achieve it. Torrence sweet-talks Jo into broadcasting radio appeals for people to come to London, but when she discovers he lied about Bill dying she flees to find him.

Bill, although injured, has survived Torrence’s plans for his execution on Hampstead Heath, escaping with Coker (Jason Priestley), who had challenged Torrence’s brutality. Coker manages to get Bill to a convent. But mother superior Durrant (Vanessa Redgrave) has only kept the surrounding Triffids at bay by periodically sending one of her flock beyond the convent walls to be sacrificed to them. When Bill exposes her, she leaves; her autocracy overthrown, Durrant is unable to accept the democratic regime that replaces hers.

Bill joins his estranged father, Dennis (Brian Cox), together with two orphaned sisters, Susan (Jenn Murray) and Imogen (Julia Joyce). Dennis has already brought Jo to his isolated manor house-cum-laboratory, where he is close to breeding infertile Triffids, thus wiping them out worldwide. But Dennis dies of Triffid stings, Bill destroys the attacking lab Triffid, and there is therefore now no way of breeding Triffids. The two adults and two girls prepare to leave for the Isle of Wight, where Coker has established a Triffid-free community. Unfortunately, Torrence discovers where Bill and Jo are and, as London is now overrun with Triffids eager for human meat, brings a band of desperadoes to force him to devise means to combat them.

Political lessons are much more apparent in The day of the Triffids, to its credit. Here we see how humans come together in groups, post-apocalypse, for good and ill. But come together in community they must. The lesson becomes: only by depending on a thoroughgoing democracy can humanity survive. How selfless the survivors’ leaders may prove to be, how altruistic in truth, is for the viewer to surmise.