Tapping
into emotions most films couldn’t infiltrate if they tried, 28 Days Later,
the new movie from director Danny Boyle, achieves a rare cinematic feat.
Hypnotic, in a sense. What the film does is connect the audience directly into
the protagonist’s emotional core and, as a result, make us feel what he feels.
In the case of 28 Days Later, the protagonist is Jim (Cillian Murphy), a
young Brit who wakes up nude in an abandoned London hospital. Unplugging the
IV’s from his arms, Jim roams around the facilities only to realize the
hospital has been evacuated - - even the phones are down. A few minutes later,
Jim, dressed in hospital-patient garments, will realize that all of London is
deserted.
A throwback to apocalyptic zombie flicks like
Dawn of the Dead, although the zombies in Boyle’s film vary greatly
from those in the films of George Romero, 28 Days Later doesn’t limit
itself to the zombie genre. It is gory and soaked in blood, not to mention scary
as hell, but the second half of the movie delves deeper into the psychology of
man. Now I enjoy watching flesh-eating zombie movies as much as the next
gore-hound, but we’ve already seen Lucio Fulci’s Zombie! flicks and
Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead flicks (not to mention the dozen other movies
dealing with the undead).
Shot on Digital Video, 28 Days Later
is probably the first movie to fully utilize the advantages of shooting on DV.
Not only does the choice of using DV benefit the film’s aesthetic, but Boyle
shoots the screenplay the same way he’d shoot it had he had a 35mm film
camera. The visual aspect alone is breathtaking.
Creatively written by Alex Garland, author of The Beach, the film deals
with a virus that keeps people and animals in a perpetual state of violent and
uncontrollable rage. The highly contagious virus, which takes effect 20-seconds
after infection, obliterates all thoughts and feelings. The infected have one
sole purpose: To unleash their rage on any living thing. Jim finds two
survivors, Selena (Naomie Harris) and Mark (Noah Huntley), who explain the
situation and the history of the epidemic. Recruiting two other survivors, Frank
(Brendan Gleeson) and his teenage daughter Hannah (Megan Burns), they set-off to
an army base that promises shelter and a cure. Needless to say, the survivors
get more than they bargained for.
When
I first saw the trailer for Danny Boyle’s The Beach in early 2000, I
thought it would be this riveting survival-of-the-fittest type of film. The
trailer was cut to exude that vibe. As it turns out, the film was anything but
riveting. Plot-wise, The Beach and 28 Days Later are completely
different films. Topic-wise, however, the two films share many similarities. The
Beach and 28 Days Later both deal with stripping humans of their
civilized behavior and putting them in situations that cause them to unleash
their primal instincts. Where the former failed, the latter succeeds in spades. -Shaun
Sages
GRADE: A
Read
Jamie Stuart's interviews with the writer and producer of 28 Days Later: Digital Rage
-Copyright 2003 by Shaun
Sages