The Invasion
ETs through the microscospe
Since extraterrestrial beings entered the imagination of Man, the possibility of an invasion has already been raised. The pioneer was English writer H.G. Wells, with his visionary book “The War of the Worlds”, which was actually an anti-war libel. To get an idea of what this fascination represents, only on the IMDB website there are 4251 references to “alien” and 853 to “alien invasion”.
But, among green men and ET calling home, one of the novels that won the most film versions was Jack Finney’s “The Body Snatchers”, the last being “The Invasion” (USA, 2007).
This movie, starring Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig, updates Finney’s central theme to the present day. After an accident in orbit, a space shuttle falls on the United States, fragmenting into thousands of pieces, all contaminated with a alien microorganism.
The psychiatrist Carol Bennell (Nicole Kidman) begins to notice changes of behavior in people after the accident, beginning with her ex-husband, who seems to have lost any sense of emotion.
With the help of her friend Ben Driscoll (Daniel Craig) and a scientist, Dr. Stephen Galeano (Jeffrey Wright), Carol discovers that the virus that came from space contaminates people and changes their DNA, transforming them into automata, subordinates to a collective intelligence. The transformation happens during sleep, after the person has been infected.
Carol desperately tries to run away with her son, but things get complicated, because besides being infected herself, the boy seems to be immune to the virus, what would not be tolerated by the aliens. She seeks an escape route, while fighting to stay awake, as it is the only way to preserve her identity.
This is the fourth version of the story taken to the screen, the first being “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” (USA, 1956), one of the most praised classics to date. After that, came the 1978 version, “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” (USA, 1978) and the 1993 one, “Body Snatchers” (USA, 1993).
“The Invasion” is a suspense thriller with great rhythm, good actors and a safe direction by Oliver Hirschbiegel. He had already directed the great “Downfall” (“Der Untergang”, ALE, 2004) and later would do “Diana” (UK, 2013) and the intriguing episodes of “Criminal: Germany” (ALE, 2019), among others.
The author of the book says he has a lot of fun with the hidden meanings imagined by people who read the novel or watched the different versions of the films. Despite the interpretations that the invaders were the communists, since the book was published at the time of the Cold War, he swears that he only thought about aliens. Certainly the supporters of a certain South American president would strongly defend this theory.
Less romantic, but with a better scientific background, are the theories that admit the possibility that life on Earth would have started from organisms brought by comets, and that fell here, after wandering through space.