Director Daniel Espinosa in the film "Alive" (2017) successfully mixed elements inherent in the genres of cosmohorror, science fiction and thriller. In the film, there was a place not only for the "running" of astronauts around the ISS with "hide and seek" from the alien xenomorph in the compartments of the ship and in the escape pods. The authors of the film, in a worldly way, reflect on the meaning of space exploration, on the importance of knowing the world around us and ourselves. The film ends with a fair maxim that discoveries are always fraught with danger. But this is not a reason to stop, but a call: when faced with the unknown, be more prudent, wise and cautious, remember the possibility of irreversible consequences for all of humanity.
The main differences between the space thriller "Life" from its sci-fi counterparts:
- The effect of the appearance and understanding of the essence of the xenomorph, which operates on the spaceship of earthlings.
- An unusual group of astronauts led by the protagonist-leader becomes a victim, given to slaughter the appetite of the monster. Opposing the unknown "living" is a well-coordinated international team of six scientists - equal members of the crew of the research spacecraft.
- The location chosen is not a virtual universe in the futuristic future. Events unfold in our time aboard a completely plausible device. He must deliver to Earth samples of soil taken with a space probe from another planet.
Living is a substance that got on board the ISS from Mars. As the story unfolds, it shows the astronauts (and with them the audience) how far one can go in the struggle for existence.
At first, the "life" is a single inert cell, which the researchers manage to bring out of suspended animation with the help of a stun gun. Feeding with glycerin and glucose turns a small translucent creature (in the form of vessels glued crosswise with a plaster) into a snot-like pink blot.
The kid unexpectedly makes a powerful "bite" of Dr. Hugh by the finger and eats a laboratory albino rat. And the naughty little man who has grown to the size of a toad begins to run around the ship, play pranks and cuts off the connection with the Earth. The wave-like movements of the pseudopods help him to become a cute octopus, which makes the strongest "hugs" with its tentacles - without a chance to get free of them.
The decision that the xenomorph must be destroyed comes to the crew members late, when it is no longer possible to cope with it. A multicellular creature has endless possibilities of adaptation and development, since each cell has a set of properties of the whole organism. This extraterrestrial substance is interesting to scientists. But the rapidly developing mutations of the harmless Martian friend, whom the children on Earth proposed to name Kelvin, turn him into a predatory and aggressive monster. The desire of this creature is one: to grow and remain alive, turning everything around into food.
It is this dissonance in Kelvin - outwardly not repulsive and terrible bloodthirsty deeds - that is for the viewer the cause of horror and a feeling of powerlessness in front of an alien creature that is not going to live according to earthly laws.
For comparison:
- In all variations of Riddley Scott's "Alien" (and its analogs), the Gigerian predator is shown - an initially aggressive alien creature, a disgusting and filthy monster of huge size with a hefty toothy head.
- Films like "Attraction" by Fyodor Bondarchuk convince us that alien life forms are humanoids. And representatives of this race are even better than earthlings: they are more intelligent, highly organized, bright in thoughts and pure in soul.
- Espinosa in the painting "Life" claims that cosmic life is radically different from us, requires careful study and is fraught with a bunch of dangers.
The audience is wrong, who at the end of the one-hundred-minute timing hoped that Miranda would be able to escape. She will travel to Earth in a capsule. And the heroic doctor David, at the cost of his life, neutralizes Kelvin, who fell from hunger into suspended animation. A capsule with an astronaut in the tenacious embrace of the "living" will circle endlessly in orbit in deep space.
Writers Paul Wernick and Rhett Reese came up with a radical ending for the film, just the opposite. Five of the six crew members are killed. The surviving David Jordan lands (or rather splashes down) somewhere in the waters of Southeast Asia. It is in a capsule, the entire space of which is covered with some kind of mucus and mold. The surviving scientist desperately gives signs to the fishermen who discovered him: do not open the hatch. In the final shots, it is shown that the rescue capsule from the Pilgrim has been opened, new boats with people are approaching it. The lines from the song of the Mumiy Troll group pop up in my head: “An alien guest Flies from afar An alien guest I don’t know yet What will you bring me ...”.
The film "Life" clearly demonstrates that in the film industry, the sci-fi genre is pushing the boundaries. If earlier these were stories about the forcible seizure of the Earth by aliens, now we ourselves are "digging a hole for ourselves": we took an unknown Martian creature on board a spaceship and voluntarily raised a "living" one that is capable of ditching all of humanity.
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