我是 AWESOME

"i wouldn't marry you if you were the last man on earth!"
or so the saying goes.

so tonight, after chinese class (which, surprisingly, i truly understood today), chris and i caught an opening night showing of will smith's new film "i am legend." despite spending most of my childhood afraid of my own shadow, i love me a good thriller-slash-horror film.

i was totally excited for this film, which is a lot like 28 days later, though not quite as scary, i think. 28 days later, the introduction to which i can thank the great film majors of chapman university, is among some of the few films i truly appreciate. this is partially because the cinematography is edgy and raw and exquisite. but also, the opening scenes depict perfectly the one thing i've always been most frightened of. it's as if someone opened up my brain, love for london and all, and chose to stream my thoughts on film!


it's deeply, beautifully, pit-of-your-soul terrifying.

the truth of the matter is, my deepest fear is the uncontrollable, inexplicable extinction of mankind. when i was a little girl, if my mom disappeared to do something unspeakable like take a shower, i would go into fierce panic attacks, which i could never quite explain. even then, i felt silly telling her that it was because, for a few minutes, i'd actually let myself believe that she'd disappeared and i'd never see her again. and not just that she'd disappeared, but that the rest of the world had disappeared with her, leaving me hopelessly, desperately alone. probably irrational, but true nonetheless. it's likely that this is why God didn't choose me for that whole great flood business, among other things, i'm sure.

when i lived in london, one of my favorite things to do was walk along the south bank. i liked that it allowed me the freedom to be. on a nice day, i also enjoyed crossing the bridge to parliament, just because everything was so lively, yet so separate. i liked that i could be disconnected and just observe, as in poe's "man of the crowd." it felt like i was dreaming, because i'd seen it so many times in the movies. it also had an uncanny ability to make me feel okay without the people i loved the most. i felt that i couldn't possibly be lonely; not here - it wasn't physically possible. i also replayed that scene in my head a few times, thinking about how frightening it would be if nobody were there with me. how desperate and unnatural it would all be if all signs of life were to suddenly disappear.

"i am legend" follows a similar plotline, with a sudden and incurable outbreak of a virus that destroys everything in its path. an abandoned new york is very much like an abandoned london, and people with this disease are not dissimilar to people with the "rage" virus. any way you toss the dice, it looks excruciating to be infected. the two biggest differences are that the infected in "i am legend" are extremely sensitive to uv rays and more importantly that, despite their aggressiveness, they're still capable of logic and, i suspect, affinity for and community with each other. it's a compelling twist to the world as we see it, as will smith's character is driven more and more deeply into hopelessness and frustration. his need for interaction slowly wears on him. i've always found the concepts of solitude and "othering" rather interesting. even when a person feels most misunderstood, it's almost unfathomable to exist without some sort of "presence." look at me; i barely understand chinese, but i'm strangely comforted by the mere fact that there are others around me here... that i will walk out my door and somebody will walk or drive by me. there's something that feels natural about presence. this is also probably why i don't understand atheism. it seems counterintuitive to die and be plunged into nothingness. we can't even handle nothingness here. if such a thing were true: if we really do die, only to see and feel nothing, then why bother with understanding or relationships here? if nothingness is where we came from and where we're going, being alone, experiencing and feeling nothing, would probably be the most natural feeling we could have. it's like reproduction... every being on earth figures it out because it's natural. if nothingness were the same, i don't think it would be so disconcerting. i think something would feel strangely right about it, not uncomfortable.

and as for "othering," i've always considered it interesting that "others" are simply that which the majority doesn't understand. usually, we understand this within the context of language, race, religion, sex, education, or sexual orientation. i've always appreciated how lost explores this idea: how the others are considered brutal because we, as an audience, don't understand them as well as the equally brutal survivors we meet in episode 1. and in terms of will smith, it's interesting how this turns in the film. how we empathize with him because we understand him, but how the film opens up the possibility that these logical and communal mutants see him as an "other." he captures them to find a cure, but all they see is him capturing them. he dwells in the light, something that seems crude and unnatural to their severely altered minds. i read in an article that this is a more profound theme in the original book, and i must admit that it intrigues me. the fluidity of what determines monstrous. evolution and destruction. majority and minority.

okay, so the zombies were cheesy and a bit cliche, but this is not what i find terrifying about films like "i am legend" or "28 days later." it still bothers me that they can run so fast and have so much strength. it also bothers me that they look like a less-refined version of lord voldemort, who is a lot like i'd always imagined satan; kind of charismatic and creepy, but very well-spoken and completely arrogant. it was like voldemort with rabies, which is never a good idea, because he'd have definitely avada kedavra'd that dog before it ever bit him. and the zombies in 28 days later are possibly worse with all their super speed, except they still look human.

what i do find interesting about the infected in both films is how painful the whole process looks. there's one scene in particular, as they're quarantining new york city, when a woman begs will smith to take her baby and save them. she claims that she's not infected and she needs someone to help her child. and he pauses for a second to look at her, because he wants so badly, as he says, to fix it. he keeps saying over and over that he won't let this happen. and though she's pitiful and sincere, you see plainly that she's completely infected. her hair has fallen out, she's pasty, and she's bleeding from every orifice on her face. and she's still holding her child. yikes. and the sad thing is that it pales in comparison to how painful the whole "rage" disease seems, with all the incessant vomiting of blood. i can't handle vomiting the plain way, much less projectile blood vomit.

i'll admit, i often find films like this difficult to watch, not because of the shocks and the twists, but because of the advances we're making in genetics, bio-terrorism, and warfare. fighting no longer means meeting each other on a battlefield, or blowing each other to smithereens. it's about dismantling. disarming. breaking morale. working from long distances. being silent until it's time to hit them hard. and as the souls of this generation and the ones to follow slowly disintegrate, things like this worry me, not because of what science can do, but of what truly, deeply evil people can do. we live in a world that is, on all levels, falling away from direct human interaction. the battles we fight aren't face-to-face anymore. how long until we've become so desensitized that fighting for a cause or a country means opening a vial?

wow, this was long. moral of the story: i don't like desolation, but i really, really like will smith. and london.