What 28 DAYS LATER Is Really About

before 28 Days Later there were plenty of movies which turned humans into monsters but none did it quite like this movie here the infected are not rotting corpses who shamble slowly toward their victims these infected are fast vicious and Loud even one could be formidable let alone a hord of them Alex Garland's screenplay captures it perfectly on page four like a bullet from a gun the infected chimp leaps out at the female activist and sinks its teeth into her neck like a bullet from a gun tells you everything about their rage fuel movement the ferocity Speed and Sound the movie also has a real gritty feel portions were shot on small digital cameras in part it was a necessity when you close main roads in London to make the city look abandoned you can only hold traffic for minutes at a time so the cameras had to be maneuverable they had to be quick to start and stop something more cumbersome with traditional film cameras camera Choice was part artistic in part practical but it all adds up to a certain feel like we're watching a combination of home video and CCTV footage rather than a movie which goes a step further in tricking your mind into believing in the story this movie even avoids opening credits or a title card when 28 Days Later appears on screen screen it's not as a title but as a descriptor that's how long after activists freed the rage infected chimps that Jim wakes from his coma and when the movie shows empty streets or atrocities it borrows from true events to stay within the bounds of reality Jim picking up money from empty streets is based on photographs of Cambodia after popot was driven out of PanAm pen money was left in the streets because it was useless at that point the board covered in notes and photos of missing people is taken from the aftermath of an earthquake in Beijing where normal lines of communication were closed the church filled with bodies is taken from atrocities in Rwanda where a church could become the site of a mass killing and turned into a makeshift Mortuary even the moment where Jim Selena and Mark survived the gas station explosion by hiding in the wall space between Windows is based on a photograph from Northern Ireland on the DVD commentary director Danny Bole describes seeing one where people escaped a Bomb Blast by doing exactly that Garland and Bole filled the movie with these images as an attempt to ground it in reality and to say something about rage at the same time the movie feels real it also feels surreal as it would to suddenly wake up in the apocalypse the plot device of Jim waking from a coma gives us a protagonist who shares our frame of reference we discover this post-apocalyptic reality at the same Pace he does and it would feel surreal like a violation of what you expect to wake up to every day some of that surrealism is achieved by stretching the truth for example London feels a lot more empty when it's completely devoid of people living or dead it's a stretch because in this scenar scario of course the streets would be filled with bodies but they made a choice to keep them empty this Clash of expectations is used throughout the movie to sustain that surreal feeling like hearing Frosty the Snowman when they enter Frank and Hannah's apartment seeing the entire city of Manchester in Flames or the upbeat music during their shopping spree itself a surreal experience How likely is it they'd find an untouched un looted store filled with everything they need in the midst of this apocalyptic Wasteland it's like a fantasy and maybe it is because in the prior Scene It seems they've driven through a painting to find the store look at the flower bed they drive by on the way there altered to look like they were drawn by Van go and there's the later dinner party scene the soldiers are joined by a grieving quiet Hannah along with Jim and Selena in the midst of a brutal Journey but the soldiers play at normaly around the dinner table it's inspired by a similar scene from Apocalypse Now and Garland uses the word surreal twice to describe it in the screenplay interior Mansion dining room night a surreal scene dinner with full Silver Service candles wine and crystal glasses napkins and everyone rather formally sitting while Jones lays food on the table wearing an apron over his uniform made all the more surreal by Jim and Selena's grubby clothes and Hannah's dazed tear stre face it may seem counterintuitive to use the word surreal while talking about how grounded the movie feels but sometimes reality feels different if you've ever been in a bad accident or experienced some unexpected tragedy it may have had a dreamlike or maybe nightmare likee quality to it that phrase we've all thought even if we didn't say it out loud this can't be happening and then he wake up today in hospital wake up and I'm I'm hallucinating or I'm but even if life has become a living nightmare 28 Days Later never becomes gratuitous with its horror it never devolves into unrelenting Darkness or nihilism instead it has a beating heart at the center of it Selena rediscovering bring a sense of meaning and maybe even love 28 Days Later also takes its time to mourn everything that's been lost think of the scene where Jim finds his parents a sad scene on its own but even more haunting thanks to the hym which plays over it abide with me another hymn a Maria is used in a later scene when they decide on leaving for the military blockade both punctuate dramatic scenes which explore two signs of the same theme family in one case losing it Jim's parents and in the other celebrating the start of a new one Jim and Selena joining Frank and Hannah using well-known religiously oriented music from the 1800s adds gravity makes the sequences appropriately haunting and as Bole describes on the commentary it conjures thoughts of history and culture both wiped out by the virus but there is some hope when the soldiers take Jim captive one of them rants about quarantine when he's taken to the execution grounds Jim sees something in the sky that proves it an airplane the world hasn't ended and after another 28 days pass the infected begin to starve Will Jim Hannah and Selena ever reach the uninfected still thriving world it's uncertain but what is certain is that Jim Selena and Hannah have come together into a makeshift family Selena thought survival was the greatest aim she could hope for but meeting Frank and Hannah taught her otherwise I was thinking I was wrong but what all the Death all the [ __ ] it doesn't really mean anything to Frank and Hannah because well she's got a dad and he's got his daughter so I was wrong when I said that staying alive is as good as it gets now with Jim and Hannah she is doing more than surviving and she is making plans for a better future even helping with a big hello sign for the next flyover this movie's grungy feel the ferocity of the infected and the emotional core at the center of it make it Stand Out Among so many apocalyptic Tales but the idea which Drew Danny Bole to Alex Garland's screenplay was rage from Garland speaking with filmmaker magazine Dany was particularly interested in issues that had to do with social social rage the increase of Rage in our society road rage and other things there are exactly zero zombies in 28 Days Later but in its basic premise is something similar to zombie movies large populations turned into hordes of monsters and like the night Dawn and Day of the Dead films which Garland cites as influences on this movie the zombies or Monsters Are Meant to represent us or at least some aspect of us like our rampant consumerism in Dawn of the Dead where even reanimated corpses are drawn to the shopping mall but in 28 Days Later the connection is more than metaphorical it's part of the story in the same filmmaker magazine interview boil referred to the infection as a psychological virus this differentiates it from the zombie genre where people become something unnatural monsters who feed on living flesh this insatiable and bizarre appetite is something new that replaces human nature but in 28 Days Later nothing new is added to human nature instead people become more of something they already are everyone has rage inside them this infection simply amplifies it and turns off everything else but Garland specifically referred to social rage like it's more than just an emotion but something that boils up as a societal phenomenon and the movie primes you to think of this because it opens with footage of what happens when rage boils over the footage is inspired by real footage of the Sierra Leon Civil War taken by Soria samur a brave journalist who put himself in the middle of War to capture raw footage and show the world what's really happening most notably in the documentary cry Freetown Bole mentions they debated using actual footage But ultimately decided it would be better to mock something up rather than depict real violence the clips that open the movie are fast and chaotic it's hard to pin down exactly what you're seeing but it clearly alludes to social unrest violence and death but it does not appear to be targeted in a calculated way but instead driven by frenzy emotion the Sierra Leon Civil War was filled with some of the worst in Humane atrocities you can imagine they are indescribably disturbing and I won't describe them here other than to say a rational person can find legitimate grievances which sparked that war but It ultimately led to monstrous actions where no adjectives exist to adequately describe their awfulness it's similar to what I discussed in my video on Castlevania nocturn concerning the French Revolution there may have been just cause for revolution but clearly there were many who fought not only for a higher cause but also to indulge in their rage little else can explain the wanton disembowelling and Slaughter this is the specific kind of Rage those opening images conjure when hate no matter how Justified boils over it can turn into a social Rage which becomes an incredible force of violence these opening Clips don't just allude to these ideas they essentially are the infection we see these clips are being screened for a chimp strapped to a chair and the scientist says he's been infected with rage in a literal sense the scientists have taken our social rage captured in footage and stuck it into these Apes why the scientist says in order to cure you must first understand and the screenplay makes it even more explicit adding the lines just imagine to have power over all the things we feel we can't control anger violence it seems their goal is to cure a population of Rage which itself is a frightening proposition there are plenty of times in history where perhaps Revolution was a just cause and it's hard to imagine it succeeding without some strong emotions pamphlets essays and logical arguments might lay the ground work but without rallying cries like Give me liberty or give me death it's hard to imagine Sparks turning into the Raging Inferno needed for Revolution and if the government Finds Its cure for rage those Sparks will amount to nothing instead emotions will be tempered and populations pacified so it seems rage has some utility on the other hand too much leads to unnecessary death and destruction just look at examples throughout history some of which have been captured on film and poured into these chimps and as the infection spreads we see what pure rage does to a society there are many ways civil unrest comes about but one that's often to blame is the failings and injustices of those in power 28 Days Later is in part of course about the fear of Highly deadly highly contagious disease at the time this movie was made there were a couple of major cases fresh in mind an outbreak of foot and mouth disease in the UK saw over 6 million cows and sheep killed in order to stop it and although it never spread to people some do like the nippa virus in 98 1 million pigs were killed to stop the outbreak but not before a 108 people were killed by it but 28 Days Later goes a step further to zero in on a particular kind of virus one that is engineered it's a cautionary tale to apply science responsibly and it touches on a distrust toward those in power not only might the scientists government and Military woefully fail to protect us against an outbreak but they might be responsible for it in the first place they may tout their goals as Noble to cure rage they must first understand it even if true it's a risk they've taken on society's behalf without permission and it reeks of self-preservation a way for those in power to hold on to Power by protecting us from ourselves by ensuring we never get too upset and never find the energy needed to take their power away huh this movie really was ahead of its time in some ways kind of feels like a good time for a sequel oh cool wait a minute zombie films what zombies the dist Trust of those we expect to protect us starts in the opening frames when we learn about the rage virus they created it's animal activists who inadvertently Let it Loose but the risk only exists thanks to the scientists and those who fund their operation the distrust continues to grow when Jim wakes up to discover they've let the country fall it nearly reaches a fever pitch when they find the soldiers acting more like overgrown children as they tour the Outpost the feeling of safety it offers quickly turns into dread and then of course we discover the military outposts Sinister nature commanding officer Henry West plans on forcing Selena and Hannah to satisfy his men ostensibly with the goal of repopulation but it feels more like trying to pacify a pack of wild animals and Jim will be executed for attempting to interfere finally we uncover another failing the airplane in the sky tells Jim the rest of the world is okay but has not found a way to help or even communicate leaving Great Britain quarantined 28 Days Later encourages a skepticism of science pushing research too far or in the wrong direction governments failing to properly address an emergency and a military that quickly turns on the people it's supposed to protect all of that adds up to civil unrest which unfettered turns into rage in 28 Days Later that rage is spread involuntarily through saliva and blood but even without infection we don't need to be forced into rage because the emotion itself is intoxicating when you feel angry there's a gravity to that emotion which makes it almost impossible to escape from if you're in an argument you want to dis proove your opponent and the idea of backing down is insane if you believe you were wronged you want to see Justice done and when anger turns to rage you will Jim woke up alone in a world filled with monsters yet somehow he managed to Cobble a family together then on the radio they found Hope a message about the answer to infection they followed its directions and it wasn't easy but they made it Hannah lost her father but they made it and that hope suddenly turned sour but when they drag Jim to those execution grounds he shows them what rage really looks like he shows them how a bicycle Courier can take on a platoon of trained soldiers he sounds the alarm to bring the infected into their compound he lets the soldiers die he kills some himself one with his bare hand hands and by the time he turns to Selena he looks no different than the infected because he is using the same weapon rage the 28 Days Later theme titled in the house in a heartbeat plays over this sequence and perfectly captures what it's all about I can't play it for you here but it's easy to find on YouTube Spotify or anywhere else you listen to music so give it a listen if you need a reminder but it starts with an ominous piano as though warning you that something is coming a warning because rage can be a terrifying Force as Jim kills his way through the compound getting covered in blood looking more and more like the infected you can feel the rage grow as the piano is overshadowed by other instruments reaching its peak as Jim digs his thumbs into a man's skull he turns to Selena and the music is silent then it returns quietly but now it's Melancholy and almost romantic because unlike the infected and unlike the social Rage that's allowed to boil over into unending violence and atrocities Jim can come back from it when the song reaches its Crescendo it's satisfying like winning an argument or enacting Justice it feels good when there is a cause that tugs at our most Primal feelings of morality and Justice the rage isn't intoxicating but you have to be able to come back from it how maybe it helps to have something like the opposite of rage instead of the intense desire to see something destroyed the intense desire to hold on to something and protect it love the thing Selena discovered when she realized Hannah and Frank were okay because they had each other familiar love and with Jim maybe she can have a romantic love to survive this world she had to become a Monster look if someone gets infected you've got between 10 and 20 seconds to kill them it might be your brother or your sister or your oldest friend it makes no difference and just so you know where you stand if it happens to you I'll do in a heartbeat but after discovering there is more than just survival she breaks that rule when Jim comes to her after killing the soldiers she hesitates that was longer than a heartbe and she brings Jim back too it's easy to imagine a world where he doesn't have Selena or Hannah and is forced to kill for survival and it's easy to imagine how that could turn him into a monster like some of those soldiers if you listen to Selena earlier in the movie ready to kill a brother sister or oldest friend she isn't wrong if someone is 15 seconds away from turning into a creature who will kill you of course it's necessary to stop them just as major Henry West isn't entirely wrong when he gives a speech about people killing people how that's what he's seen in the four weeks since infection and it's no different from what he saw the four weeks before infection and the 4 weeks before that that as far back as I care to remember people killing people which to my mind puts us in a state of normality right now but both their stories are incomplete and that's what it means to be cynical it's a worldview corroborated by so much evidence but only if you ignore the rest because the truth is that yes there is Rage but there is also love 28 Days Later is thrilling dark sad and at the same time strangely hopeful that last part is not something you often see done well in horror and it's part of what's made this one of my favorite movies watching it again today it also amazes me to see how relevant it is Alex Garland is about to release Civil War which tackles themes including distrust of media and politicians which feels like a natural extension of some of the distrust on display in this movie and of course there's the announcement of 28 years later given the additional announcement that it may be the first of a new Trilogy it seems Garland and Bole see these themes as at least three times as relevant 22 years later after 28 Days Later and I'm sure they'll have some new ideas to explore through the story as well and yes I am aware of 28 Weeks Later but given Bole and Garland's limited involvement in that movie it never felt like a true successor to me but just for fun I might revisit it before the true sequels arrive so let me know if you're interested in seeing that if you enjoyed this video please like subscribe and hit the Bell icon for more with that thank you for watching and see you on the next one take

Channel: OneTake

Views: 143,048

Keywords: 28 days later, 28 days later explained, 28 days later ending explained, 28 years later, 28 weeks later, danny boyle, alex garland

Id: YmJgLIEevI4

Length: 23min 30sec (1410 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 03 2024