Jottings - Slice of life - 254 ( H.P. Lovecraft and “Annihilation” - the 2018 movie based on his idea)

Jottings - Slice of life - 254 ( H.P. Lovecraft and “Annihilation” - the 2018 movie based on his idea)

In the annals of English literature, no two writers have seen so much poverty, disregard, and unpopularity during their lifetime coupled with effervescent genius, dark fertile imagination and supreme written artistry over the English language as Edgar Allan Poe and HP Lovecraft - two of the greatest novelists and prose writers in the last two hundred years. In the majority of their writings , Man is often pictured as a species tottering at the edge of an uncertain certainty, and to whom the infinite vastness outside his parochial, blinkered brain is as unintelligible as it is frightening and numbing. If Poe is considered the creator of the mystery detective genre through the intricate characterization of his mysterious philosopher, rationalist and amateur detective Auguste Dupin in stories such as “Murders in the rue morgue” and “The purloined letter”; then HP Lovecraft is the pioneer of horror fiction based on unknown realms of alien existence which is mostly ignored or rationalized by civilized man. In works like “In the mountains of Madness” or the “Calls of the Chulhtu”, or the “The Dunwich horror," Lovecraft weaves a fantasy of dark beginnings, utter meaninglessness and the limitations of human standards of morality in the infinite expanse of the cosmos. Both authors died as destitutes, and in poverty. And ironically, both are today revered as masters of their art forms, with contemporary books, drama, movie and music deriving significant inspiration from different aspects of Poe and Lovecraft’s work. Especially, cinema - that medium which can project so vividly on screen, the visual and verbal imagery of darkness residing both in the human heart and outside - is highly indebted to both these writers. Their writings opened up exciting areas for film makers providing endless possibilities to explore the terrors and instability of human psyche when faced with the fear of the unknown.

One of the more recent movies based on Lovecraft’s original short story “Color out of space ," written in 1927, is “Annihilation” with Natalie Portman playing the lead role. Though, this movie is an adaption of Jeff Vandermeer’s first book in his science fiction trilogy, there is no question, that the genesis of the idea lay in the genius of Lovecraft. In fact, among the hundred of shorts stories and dozens of full length novels, Lovecraft wrote during his brief lifetime, he considered “Color out of space” as his personal favorite. Over the last three months, I have been reading all the works of Lovecraft in its chronological order. Not an easy task. On kindle, the completely collection runs into thousands and thousands of pages. What fascinates me about Lovecraft’s writing is his feel and conviction for this theme, and the austere language of the old good England. Though am American, born in Rhode Island, Lovecraft was against what he called the “Bastardizing” of English by immigrants. Yes, Lovecraft was a racist and a strong advocate of superiority of white man, and almost all his stories have a tinge of disdain for native and primitive cultures. The darkness in his stories often have their origins in rituals and traditions in long buries cultures. Anyway, “The colors out of space”, though, is based on a different theme. Lovecraft, as a child, was fascinated by astronomy. The vast immensities of space, and the darkness that enveloped this the planet earth - both terrified and interested him. Partly because of his weak physical constitution, and partly his brooding outlook, he was able to peer into those recesses of Human evolution, which otherwise men in cheerful frame of mind would bury under the carpet. In this particular short story, he conceives of an alien life form that appears on a remote farm in New England through a meteor. This life-form takes the shape of a colorful shimmer, and slowly wreaks mutations in plant and animal life around it. Biologically, our forms are programmed by cells and genes within. The hypothetical scientific question about what happens when those gene mutate or instructions morph into something else always puzzles and frightens man. In fact, what is cancer, but a form of terrible and uncontrolled mutation of the human cell. We still dont know why it happens? Why should a normal functional human body go on a spree of self destruction? Modern doctors are still puzzled as they were hundreds of years ago. In siddharta Mukherjee’s seminal book “The emperor of maladies” , he tells the story of cancer, and its elusive trajectory in medical sciences. Anyway, Extrapolating the theme of mutation, Lovecraft conceives his alien organism as a colorful spectrum of light from outer space bubbling up from the earth into which the meteor has sunk, and slowly seeps and transforms itself into other forms of life, changing their physical and behavioral patterns. In some of the most chilling and lyrical passages in the history of fiction , Lovecraft paints a intense picture of a family living on the farm the meteor landed, how all the members of the household slowly but visibly degenerate and disintegrate into madness and their body metamorphoses into grotesque forms that tenuously hangs on the balance trying hard to remain human, but pulled by an unknown force to become something else unnamable. Alongside the family's descent into raving madness and instability, vegetables around the farm grow to abnormal sizes but completely tasteless, lush green grass turns ash grey and elongated, cows begins to mow in a strange fashion, Horses collapse and shrink to nothingness, and there is general dark miasmic panic in the air. Scientists from the county investigating the material from the meteor can find nothing. Solid matter as known to science, doesn’t suit that material. Kept in a closed glass jar for observation, specimens slowly vanish exuding exotic colors beyond the known spectrum, and glitters with a warm shimmer which distracts and penetrates anything it touches. I am not surprised that Lovecraft considered “Color out of space” his personal favorite. There is an intensity to this story that lasts longer in our mind that others.

“Annihilation” - the 2018 movie, is based on this idea of mysterious shimmer around a remote army base, which gradually extends in all directions. Natalie Portman ( as Lena), a molecular biologist, and four other ladies from the army base decide to explore the interior of the shimmering haze, when none of the soldiers who enter that perimeter return alive, and the only one who comes out happens to be Lena’s husband. But he comes back physically and mentally sick - a grotesque caricature of himself. It is clear that something was happening within that haze which was consuming anyone venturing into it. I have always admired Natalie Portman’s intensity on screen. After debuting in 1993 in Leon - the professional, as a young girl who needs protection from the drug mafia ( a movie remade in Bollywood during the nineties as “Bichoo” with Sunny Deol and Rani mukherjee), Portman has essayed innumerable roles, growing in maturity and depth with each. “Black swan”, a psychological thriller got her the Academy award in 2010. Like Meryl Streep, Natalie has this incredible talent to allow her eyes do the talking. In “Annihilation”, Natalie showcases that talent to great effect providing a stunning performance as a scientist who is the only one who truly understands what is happening within the haze as a process of genetic mutation - of a force that morphs one form into another and new variants created - and not a mysterious enemy to be shot and defeated. There are some unexpected turns as the story moves along. It is, however, Director Alex Garland beautiful cinematography and deft touch that sets the right tone for the movie. He creates an atmosphere of eeriness that is at once starling, beautiful and dark. The rich and profuse colors of flowers , the deviant forms and structures growing within the shimmer, the sudden mutations of man to animal with human traits intact, the abnormal violence of cells destroying cells, and more than anything else, the sense of fear and dread on the faces of the five ladies as they grapple with something beyond their ken - is directed with consummate skill by Alex.

As an avid Lovecraft reader, I relished the theme and the movie. For a writer, who never thought his works will survive his life, his ideas have done well over the last three decades. There are innumerable adaptions and sub-adaptations of his books. The 1986 blockbuster “Aliens” featuring Sigourney Weaver was also based on an alien creature that Lovecraft conceived in his “ Call of Chulhtu” cycle. H. P. Lovecraft is today considered one of finest writers of the last century. His morbid and often skeptical view of mankind and its future can be a little frustrating sometimes, but if one ignores the racial undertones, his helplessness and his belief in the underworld, and read his stories as rooted in an existential fear of living in a universe that is vast and incomprehensible; then fresh meaning emerges. In his own words: “The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents”. This was his basic stand. That human brain is limited by the senses and what it can know, whereas there is vast unknown that exists, and is as true as the one that we take for granted. His stories were always based on intimations from the other side of the light - a darkness, without which light cannot exist.

God bless…

yours in mortality,

Bala