Annihilation Is A Well-Made Intentionally Disorienting Thriller

Alex Garland already had a solid foothold as a noteworthy name in American science-fiction cinema with his work as a writer on projects like Sunshine and Dredd, but with 2015's Ex Machina, he made a high-quality leap into the world of directing. His follow-up directorial effort to that feature is Annihilation, a feature film adaptation of a novel by Jeff VanderMeer, that allows Garland to expand his scope as a filmmaker without losing the contemplative nature of Ex Machina. Interestingly, despite having a larger canvas to work with this time, as well as a major studio footing the bill, Garland has written a film that engages in more unorthodox narrative techniques than Ex Machina, believe it or not.

Let's Talk About Stalker, The Movie, Not The Short Lived Ill-Advised CBS Drama

Sight & Sound Voyage Entry #19
Placement On Sight & Sound Top 50 Movies List: #29 (tied with Shoah)

Between Andrei Rublev and now Stalker, my primary impression of Andrei Tarkovsky as a director is that he's a methodical man, a guy who likes to let both his shots and ideas linger for the viewer, letting the larger ramifications of what he's depicting on-screen sink in for the audience and leave them with plenty to ponder once the entire motion picture is finished playing. This slow-burn approach sometimes left me a bit cold in Stalker (though that should be taken less as a major critique of the movie and more on me being sometimes unresponsive to certain slower pieces of storytelling), but there's no denying Tarkovsky has an incredibly evocative way of creating cinema that's both bold and intriguing.