The goal of a director as they get older (as people like Steven Spielberg and Steven Soderbergh have put it) is to maintain their childish sense of imagination, but to also absorb new information and to grow as an adult. Director Danny Boyle is 68 years old, but based on his new film 28 Years Later, he still has the energy of a rambunctious 20 year old. The amount of experimentation with camera movements and new types of visual and practical effects makes for a visceral experience in the movie theater that doesn’t at all look like it was approved or thought up by somebody who qualifies for the senior discount at most movie theaters.
Boyle and writer Alex Garland return to their iconic horror franchise not-quite 28 years later, but 23 years later. It’s safe to say that since they both revolutionized the zombie genre with their low-budget not-quite-zombie zombie 2002 horror film, 28 Days Later, a few things have changed in our world. Things have changed in the world of the film as well.
Mostly ignoring the events of the last film, 28 Weeks Later (which Boyle and Garland had minimal involvement with) introduces us to a completely new set of characters. At the center is a young boy named Spike (Alfie Williams), who we first see preparing to travel to the mainland with his father, Jamie (Aaron Taylor-Johnson, playing what he plays best: somewhat of a scumbag). His mother, Isla (Jodie Comer), is sick with some mysterious disease that nobody in their village can cure or identify. They all reside on an island that’s perfectly isolated from the outside world and protected from the Infected. Since the last film, Great Britain has become a quarantined area and the mainland is a dangerous area filled with the Infected, who’ve evolved slightly in their different ways. Spike is an innocent 12-year-old, but his father is ready to declare him a man.
On Spike’s first outing to the mainland with his father, chaos (predictably) ensues, with close calls involving a stampede and an escape from an Alpha. Alphas are the most powerful and evolved of the Infected, making them the most dangerous (there’s a fair amount of penile imagery in this film and the alphas have the most massive ones). However, the most important thing that happens in this first chapter of the film is when Spike sees a mysterious fire in the distance. His father suspiciously brushes it off, but when Spike returns home he asks a village elder about it, who informs him that it was most likely Doctor Kelson (Ralph Fiennes). When Spike confronts his father about this, angry that his father never mentioned that there was a doctor who might be able to diagnose his mother, his father informs him that Doctor Kelson’s gone mad, and that the only time he ever saw him, Kelson was “collecting” hundreds of dead bodies. Spike, however, is undeterred by this and ventures out with his sick mother in order to find the doctor.
I could go on and on about the look of the film, the performances, the terrific and unconventional score by hip hop group, ‘Young Fathers’ (it better get a nomination), but mostly I want to address one key scene. The best scene. The scene I think contains the heart of this film.
The best scene in 28 Years Later takes place after Spike and his mother, Isla, have been on their journey for a day or two and they see the Angel of the North statue (a real statue located in Gateshead, England. It’s a magnificent sight). As they look upon it, Isla recounts the first time she saw the statue to her father. Her father’s dead, but in previous scenes, she’s been referring to Spike as if he’s her father. Partly as a joke, but also because her mental state is declining and she clearly sees similarities between the two. She recalls to her “father,” when they saw the statue together and he informed her that the statue would stand for hundreds of years and that it’s like stepping into the future. She was terrified because she “thought they had actually fallen into the future.”
It is at this moment that Boyle adds the effective and heartbreaking visual choice of having a larger man (presumably the body of her real father) walk up from behind her and tenderly place his hands on her shoulders. We don’t see his face, but we know exactly who it is.
“How many centuries have we fallen this time?” she asks as we see a time lapse of the statue through the years. The message is clear; nothing is permanent, but after we’re gone, if we’ve done our job, certain things will be left behind and prevail.
Unfortunately, I did not go into 28 Years Later cold. It already had a reputation for being a surprising tear-jerker, but much of that emphasis was put on the ending. Watching this scene, I was taken aback by the tears that were beginning to well up in my eyes. What follows is perhaps the most profound death of a “zombie” in any film that could potentially be categorized as such.
As Spike is staring at his mother talking to her “father,” a starving and skinny Infected rises up from the field of flowers and stares at Isla for a moment. This reveal is slow, and oddly paced, but intentionally so, because after Spike sees this Infected, he raises his bow and shoots it right in the head. The infectious blood flies from the dead Infected onto Isla’s face. It doesn’t get into her eyes or mouth, but it’s a little too close for comfort. Spike hurriedly wipes the blood off of his mothers face. The death is slow and sad, but the whole film is right there.
Just like that came the death of one living thing, and just like that Isla’s life almost came to an end. 28 Years Later isn’t a film about coming to accept the end of life, it’s a film about coming to understand how fragile that life is. You never know when you’re going to die, and a “zombie” apocalypse doesn’t change that.
That’s the core idea that Boyle and Garland latched onto. And that’s what makes 28 Years Later one of the best films of the year.
