War of the Worlds

As mentioned a while ago, War of the Worlds (2005) brings me about to face my fears. I casually caught the film just as it started on television the other night and was compelled to continue watching it; as it turns out this stands as one of my favourite films. Perhaps not top ten, but "up there" if you know what I mean - I fully expect that you don't (because I'm not certain myself). Inspired by seeing it on television I quickly switched over the media center so I could watch the movie in Bluray quality high definition, sans commercial breaks. Overall, it makes me appreciate the cinematic quality that Spielberg is so eloquently capable of delivering.

I want to talk about the fear that this movie drives into me though. I've mentioned before that the activities of the alien invaders is exactly what gets my spine tingling when they are able to turn people to dust immediately, and this still holds true. It's the finality, the suddenness of death and the inescapable aspect that really gets me. It's so easy to place myself on the street alongside all the others, watching in horror as those vibrant beams of doom come blasting along the sidewalk, killing indiscriminately. So this brings me to the first fear: immediate, unprepared death.

It's not uncommon for people to console themselves in the death of another when they justify that the person "went quickly" or "without pain." It makes us feel better, knowing that the process of dying - of letting go - will be a peaceful one. And we bring this desire to the most violent of deaths, as we reassure ourselves that the body will shut down the appropriate nerve centers, or will numb us until we simply "fall asleep." The deaths in War of the Worlds are instantaneous and violent: people explode in a flurry of dust. Instant cremation. But upon rewatching, I see that this is not necessarily the case: the most horrific imagery is the initial attack on the street. A woman is running toward us [the camera] when she is hit by the beam. We see her face contort in horror and agony as her cells are de-liquified. For the most brief moment she continues to move when her face is dust, then she explodes. It doesn't look good at all for that painless death, although it does happen relatively quickly. It's the same thing that Star Trek hints at in the episode of The Next Generation when a collector (who has kidnapped Data) is threatening everyone with these rare and in-humane phasers. These phasers function in the same manner as standard-issue ones on the "death" setting, in that they vaporize every molecule, nearly instantly. But they describe that this phaser, in particular, makes that process an agonizing one. The last second of your life will be spent in extreme torture as your body is turned inside out. The standard-issue phasers are somehow more humane in that they make your last second painless (I guess) but still quite final. As I watch people explode into clouds in War of the Worlds, I can't help but think how painful that must be, and I took no solace in how quickly that pain would be over.

This same scene brings me into my second terror: how inescapable death is. We can't outrun it, we can't hide from it: death will catch up with every single one of us, and that scares me. Those kill beams blast apart not only humans, but everything else too: buildings get blasted apart, cars are flipped into the air and generally, chaos ensues with anything the beam touches. Spielberg is quite literally showing us that you can't outrun death. But there are other instances where we see that you can't escape: no matter where Ray (Cruise) brings his family, the pods are there wreaking havoc. Just when you think they catch a bit of a break in the safety of a basement, they are forced to deal with the all-seeing eye, another literal device of the idea that the monster is always watching. They slink from room to room, avoiding the gaze of the eye, but it's practically relentless, and hyper-sensitive to the point where the slightest noise will get their attention. I can't help but think how quickly I would be caught as I'm not positive I could maintain absolute silence for so long. Not to mention that after the eye leaves, the tiny aliens march in out of curiosity, and to add insult to injury, little red veiny alien roots start covering the surface of everything.

When I was younger I would have the odd dream where I couldn't escape. In one instance, it was a giant tyrannosaurus is chasing me, and this rex is unstoppable. I run into a house and he just rips the roof off. In another dream, I'm sitting at my desk when a shadowy figure emerges from the wall and approaches me quickly; backed into the corner with nowhere to go, I await my fate at the hands of a supernatural beast. It's no wonder that War of the Worlds chooses a foe of unknowable strength and ability (as so often science fiction does). It may be weak to simply provide these aliens with the means to do as they please, but it works perfectly in the genre of horror films, which is exactly what Worlds is. Spielberg has returned to his roots of suspense with this adaptation, adding his masterful brush strokes to every frame. Indeed, I once read a critique of this movie years ago stating that Spielberg was a master of the scene, but in this particular case, a failure at bringing a cohesive movie together. I could never see it that way, as I now know that this is actually a horror film. Spielberg is able to bring his expertise in the creation of a scene and deliver to us an entire film that embodies our deepest fears - or at the very least, my own deep fears (aside from spiders and commitment, I suppose). A film could be judged by the emotion it brings out in the viewer, and this is no different here, it's just not the emotion that most people - I think - were expecting. Unlike Independence Day, this movie makes the death ray personal, and relateable. Not one of us is going to hide in Area 51, but we will hide in a basement.  None of us are ever going to fly to the mothership with a computer virus, but we would take a couple of grenades and sacrifice ourselves for our children. And it's these personal, human touches that Spielberg is able to convey perfectly on screen time and again; not just in War of the Worlds, but in all of his masterpieces.