28 DAYS LATER
Sun. March 14, 2004Categories: Abstract Dynamics
I’m the last person in the world to see this, obviously.
Just watched it on video, and was blown away. It’s almost as good as an American film! I’ve long since learned to dismiss any recommendation of British films; too many bitter disappointments. Watching British films is usually like an act of charity. You feel that you’re doing the film a favour. But this is refreshingly lacking in the vices of the typical Britflick; it’s neither worthy socialist-realism nor some pathetic attempt to court yoof kulcha. The scenes of deserted, depopulated London are worth the price of admission themselves. But this has a genuine sense of drama and excitement and, most surprising of all for a British film, a real visual imagination. Plus they seem to have innovated a new type of horror monster: the rage zombie, frenzied rather than lumbering.
A quality British film? Whatever next.
my mate was telling me about this at work. he did a quality impression of an infected monkey. sounds good. maybe i’ll watch it.
I have to say I’m surprised at yr reaction mark: I felt it was in many ways a typical british disappointment – lacklustre production (more so if you see it on the big screen), insufficient editing, and, the worst thing, totally linear – why is it that most british filmmakers seem only to be able to slavishly follow one story strand, linearly – when even the most unsophisticated scriptwriter must have discovered multiple interweaved narratives, temporal shifts, etc. by now; I noticed the same thing about Morvern Callar, which I caught on TV the other night after having heard great things about it.
I liked the opening of 28 D L – the deserted capital, etc. But ultimately, a bit disappointing, and in both plot and visual terms, no matter how much I despise hollywood product (and of course I appreciate the ironic spirit in which you say this), I can’t agree that it’s ‘almost as good as an american film’ yet…
Actually in terms of visual sophistication and narrative ambiguity Morvern Callar was far more promising despite its yoofishness. At least it looked like a film rather than a ’70s bbc2 schools’ programme.
There’s a whole book to be written on what british cinema could/should be – and although any advance on Four Weddings… has to be praised, to sit through 28 D L again would require a desperate patriotism to which even I haven’t quite yielded yet!
Aren’t zombie stories usually of necessity remorselessly linear Robin? In any case I thought 28DL was, if linear, at least admirably “crooked” in that it took some unexpected twists and turns.
Having said that, I think the best post-apocalyptic survivalist epic I’ve seen in the past year is Michael Haneke’s astonishingly bleak Le temps du loup, which makes 28 Days Later look like…well, Four Weddings and a Funeral.
isn’t that the point – we are so used to judging british films by their own suboptimal criteria rather than against…well, _good_ films!
Perhaps I should say that what I’m objecting to is rather ‘unilinearity’, since linearity of narrative doesn’t necessarily necessitate linearity of the film itself, where there you can switch between multiple characters/situations all careering towards the same terminus. It’s this simple ‘multilinearity’ that I am constantly surprised at the lack of, I’m not arguing for needlessly ‘twisty’ time-travel plots or anything.
Dunno whether you watched it on DVD but on mine theres some alternative endings: the ‘original’ ending, before they changed it to make it rosier, is bleak as hell. And they should have stuck with it, rather than the cottage-in-the-Lakes ending (or was it the Highlands, whatever)
I enjoyed it, speshially the deserted London and burning-Manchester bits, the bleached out-visuals, thought it lost its way a bit near the end.And the wee lass couldnt act.
[Of course you can see frothing murderous zombies in Glasgow at about 2am every Friday night]
The movie has some cool desolated landscapes but to my rusted taste it isn’t a good movie:
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The movie (28 Days Later) fits the Pulp-Bio-Horror (or even Survival Horror) genre politics (like most of PS / PS2 video game titles) which illustrates the lines of a viral insurrection putting the free-market of survival in danger; but what actually happens is promoting and intensifying survival methods and passion (we must not formulate this passion as a subjective taste) for not only survival but also optimization of Survival Economy. Politics of Survival Horror invites the lines of viral disorders as a post-industrial scheme for replacing the once industrious assembly bays of Survival Economy with something else, something more reliable and efficient, something from the outside.
i would’ve liked to have seen the alt ending. I saw it at the cinema, and as I said that certainly made it look worse than on a TV(wasn’t it shot on DV?)
I agree, it occupies the same space as the superficially intense but fairly banal Playstation culture.
Baal reminding me of the cottage-in-the-lakes bit reminded me of how bad it actually got in the second half. Were you on valium while you were watching it, mark?
The idea of raging hyper zombies returns to Joe D’Amato (known as the worst director in Italy), but there are lots of more modern “rage zombies” chemically fueled by lab-engineered bio-hazards on PC video games. Maybe K-punk should start a thread on zombies; i’d love to read it. —
Yes, i’ve watched it on TV; … guess it was more twisted.
The idea of raging hyper zombies returns to Joe D’Amato (known as the worst director in Italy), but there are lots of more modern “rage zombies” chemically fueled by lab-engineered bio-hazards on PC video games. Maybe K-punk should start a thread on zombies; i’d love to read it. —
Yes, i’ve watched it on TV; … think it was more twisted.
Blimey, sorry I spoke! 🙂
In addition to the kicking here, I’ve had people (hi Rob) phoning me up and admonishing me for the praise I’ve foolishly heaped on 28 DL. Maybe Robin’s right and I was unconsciously using less rigorous than normal criteria in assessing the film; strue, it’s difficult not to do that with Britflix cos one’s expectations are so lowered. All I’ll say is that at a certain point I _forgot_ that I was watching a British film.
As for the ending. Well, what surprised us was their continued faith in the authorities. After their experiences with the testosterone-crazed Army boys, you’d have thought they’d have been a little wary of military types, y’know…
Politics of Survival Horror invites the lines of viral disorders as a post-industrial scheme for replacing the once industrious assembly bays of Survival Economy with something else, something more reliable and efficient, something from the outside.
I don’t get this, Reza, can you elaborate?
Were you on valium while you were watching it, mark?
No, just the normal anti-depressants.
Its not actually a new idea: that it has long been accepted by social analysis that since the techno / telluric structure lacks an autonomous nervous system it must agitate, propagate, replicate and goes rabid (becomes pestilentialy creative) according to a viral diagram (i.e. the Politics of the Outside and its agitators / supporters: from viral insurgency, the Sun as the only avatar of darkness, etc.) A major part of the politics of the outside is trying to domesticate (stealthily and unconventionally) the lineaments of tellurian insurgency whose uncompassionate creativity to engineer / hatch anti-survival plagues and ungrounding processes is unbearable for any political survival or survival economy.
On the other hand, the Politics of the Outside and its avatars are introduced as mere routes to intensity plateaus and solar un-enlightenment (Darkness Moves); but what actually happens in the Politics of the Outside is germination of an immensely professional Survival Economy through which intensities are creatively captured and transformed to architectonic forces; the outside becomes an assembly bay for ever-developing methods of grounding and survival economy. There is an essay at Cold Me (www.cold-me.net) entitled Pestis Solidu discussing how the politics of the outside is capable of grounding (but non-transcendentally appropriating) intensities as extremely flexible and traveling architectonic forces (introduced in the essay as slope-processes) which creatively and unconventionally germinate networks of pseudo-fluxes where Ground and Solidus (solidity and its machinery) form their own torrential crisscross of fluxes, capable of refreshing and empowering the grund in more reliable and efficient ways; also, rendering the grund and survival economy fluidly inconvincible. You can follow the panorama in the forthcoming essay (an addendum to pestis solidus) On Hydraulic Revolution in Iran or my forthcoming book GAS.
Anyway, thanks for your attention and many thanks for this wonderful blog.
READ THIS ONE and sorry for reposting.
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Its not actually a new idea: that it has long been accepted by social analysis that since the techno / telluric structure lacks an autonomous nervous system it must agitate, propagate, replicate and become rabid (become pestilentialy creative) according to a viral diagram (i.e. the Politics of the Outside and its agitators / supporters: from viral insurgency, the Sun as the only avatar of darkness, etc.) A major part of the politics of the outside is trying to domesticate (stealthily and unconventionally) the lineaments of tellurian insurgency whose uncompassionate creativity to engineer / hatch anti-survival plagues and ungrounding processes is unbearable for any political survival or survival economy.
On the other hand, the Politics of the Outside and its avatars are introduced as mere routes to intensity plateaus and solar un-enlightenment (Darkness Moves); but what actually happens in the Politics of the Outside is germination of an immensely professional Survival Economy through which intensities are creatively captured and transformed to architectonic forces; the outside becomes an assembly bay for ever-developing methods of grounding and survival economy. There is an essay at Cold Me (www.cold-me.net) entitled Pestis Solidu discussing how the politics of the outside is capable of grounding (but non-transcendentally appropriating) intensities as extremely flexible and traveling architectonic forces (introduced in the essay as slope-processes [1]) which creatively and unconventionally germinate networks of pseudo-fluxes where Ground and Solidus (solidity and its machinery) form their own torrential crisscross of fluxes, capable of refreshing and empowering the grund in more reliable and efficient ways; also, rendering the grund and survival economy fluidly inconvincible. You can follow the panorama in the forthcoming essay (an addendum to pestis solidus) On Hydraulic Revolution in Iran or my forthcoming book GAS.
Anyway, thanks for your attention and many thanks for this wonderful blog.
[1] slope-process: both on its geologic course of action and as a dy/dx coupling of intensities (take Bacon, Bellmer, Deleuze and Wittfogel for example)
footnotes in a comment – a first in the history of blogging?
Well, not the first one in the history of blogging … i have already seen a fully charted, footnoted, illustrated comment at one of my favorite iranian blogs (was more like an essay uploaded to a wrong url).
There was a time, not too long ago, when the likes of Danny Boyle in the UK and Kevin Smith in the US were being hailed as the new badboys of independent film-making, with Trainspotting and Clerks to prove it.
Now …[as some of us had warned elsewhere], these guys have submerged themselves in laddish post-modernism, cynically recycling mediocre B-movies from yesteryear (even a bad Marx Bros movie is now superior to anything Smith can churn out). In case you hadn’t noticed (not easy when, astonishingly, Boyle blissfully refused all references to his starkly-obvious influences),the cheaply-DV-shot-badly-burned-to35mm 28 Days Later is an unapologetic rip-off of The Day The Earth Stood Still, The Day of The Triffids, Invasion of The Body Snatchers, and Night of the Living Dead.
… at least those movies had a naivete that was hilarious. Boyle’s crap was unwatchable.
Yes, Britain film industry is in trouble, but there are still some serious films and film-makers out there eg Steven Frears’ Dirty Pretty Things, Ken Loach … but sf or horror? Nothing since Neil Jorden — and he’s Irish 🙂
===Padraig
Bloody hell, now the REALLY heavy artillery have arrived….
I really am sorry I spoke…:-)
I must say, Padraig, whatever the flaws of 28DL I didn’t think it was cynical laddish postmodernism. I despise that as much as the next woman, I promise you.
Kinda appreciated the cheaply shot DV thing. At least it wasn’t theatre on film like so many Britflix.
As for Boyle’s influences, yeh, they’re pretty evident, but I thought 28DL was more than a cynical retread.
But so many ppl I respect have a downer on this film, I must have judged it too generously.
Great to hear from you btw Padraig.
Maybe, because you’re British, the movies landscapes don’t work for you … but i’ve been always fascinated by such desolate urban spaces (simulations of vast necropolises in Mesopotamia) which I guess are peculiar to your country: the skies look like those old texture-less skies in Arcade games, sewers hold the most forbidden secrets of commercialism, industries, and meat colored horrors, corners have been evaporated and teleportation to some inter-dimensional world, an untrodden ancientness (Nihilanth), is imminent (old video games narration). So, 28Days isnt so trashy, if we emphasize on its plagued lands.
The A1 as a simulation of mesopotanian necropolis, pure Ruinationalism, I love it! Nice to see someone appreciating from afar all the precious aspects of the Rotten Isle that I love. Rather than red buses and chelsea weddings, this atmosphere really is the sort of cultural export we should be producing, so to that extent 28DL has to be applauded.
Incidentally regarding english skies, and with a shoutout to all ex-warwick/midlands massive, did anyone see painter George Shaw’s touring exhibition last year – dreary Tile Hill skies rendered to perfection in Humbrol enamel paint.
… saw your photography; seems you are also fascinated by this kind of Ruinationalism. great.
thanks :), if you dig around you’ll find some excellent ruinationalism posts and links on k-punk, in last month’s archive.
yes, thanks … i’ve already read them … my forthcoming books undergoes the same mixture of ruinationalism + hyperstitional dyamics.
Just curious, have you ever traveled to Mesopotamia or Middle East? … Yazd in Iran, Musel in Iraq, Marvdasht near Shiraz (where I live in) have some great collections. This spring, I ll join some archeologist friends for traveling to Zahak Castle (you can check some brief remarks on this wonderful figure at cold me forum); will take some photographs for sure (you might find them interesting).
I haven’t….I will check out the photographs for similarities to post-industrial english decline!
the skies look like those old texture-less skies in Arcade games, sewers hold the most forbidden secrets of commercialism, industries, and meat colored horrors, corners have been evaporated and teleportation to some inter-dimensional world, an untrodden ancientness (Nihilanth), is imminent (old video games narration)
Actually have you seen Jorge Grau’s Living Dead at the Manchester Morgue? That fits yr description of washed-out angloscapes perfectly… And it’s all about pest control gone wrong…
no … will check it out.
What we have here in iran is the lack of pest management: we always live in the New Pest Order (the New Zahakian Age; Zahak: ten plagues)
I’m not British, but I thought this movie was pretty great. I thought it looked great, especially for DV, and I saw it in the theater. I felt that Boyle might be reigning in his pretension and sticking to genre-defined goals and that he accomplished those quite well, much better than an American genre film, I’d say.