"The Invasion" a notch above "I, Robot"
The Invasion
Directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel, starring Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig
Warner Bros. and Village Roadshow
93 minutes
Rated PG-13
Reviewed 2007 August 21
"The Invasion" is a contemporary version of "Invasion of the Body Snatchers." In "The Invasion," an alien organism from outer space, brought to Earth on a space shuttle, takes over the bodies of humyns. It looks like a flu epidemic at first but turn out to be a strange spore. The humyns look the same after the transformation, but their behavior changes. The humyns affected become less confrontational, in the movie only attacking dogs that sense the change, and humyns who haven't changed. TV news reports declines in conflicts world-wide. The alien organism spreads in a virus-like way, as if by infection. After someone is infected, the transformation is activated when they fall asleep. Nicole Kidman plays Dr. Carol Bennell, a Washington, D.C., psychiatrist who is a divorced mother. It adds an interpersynal element combined with intrigue, since Bennell's ex-husband is a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention official, and appeals to individualist amerikans. Bennell plays a unique, if accidental, role in the outcome of the epidemic. Because of her doctor friend Ben Driscoll (Daniel Craig), who takes her to a party with cynical government officials from different countries who struggle with each other professionally but eat together, Bennell gets a glimpse of Washington politics. The diplomats have a high level of understanding of what they do. They represent opposing interests and conflict with each other, but find it necessary to get along because they have to talk with each other professionally. The party dinner scene serves to contrast that political tension, coupled with a submerged desire to be friendly with others personally, with the harmony the aliens offer. Bennell psychologizes a foreign ambassador's view of politics as expressing something about him as an individual. Later, a comparison is drawn between what the aliens do and what psychiatrists do with people's emotions. Taking jabs at psychiatrists who are quick to prescribe medication, "The Invasion" tantalizingly seems to start out as a commentary on the psychological regime and the exclusion of those who disagree with that or those with characteristics psychology would disapprove of (humyns who appear to be emotional and unaffected by the spore are pursued by the humyns-turned-invaders), but ends up as a movie that toys with sociobiological ideas about aggression as an answer to violence in the world. Mostly, the movie discourages any real solution to war and violence by locating the causes in humyn nature and raising some fantasy about changing that, leading to petty-bourgeois apathy.
Reviewers are heavily criticizing "The Invasion" on artistic grounds. It is also difficult to see how "Invasion" would resonate politically even within bourgeois political struggle. "Invasion" contains references to the Middle East, Eastern Europe, Sudan, and other regions prominent in Western media reporting of conflicts, but "Invasion"'s possible pacifist undertone will be a dud for most viewers. Amerikans' temporary exasperation with war doesn't lead to consistent pacifism, because it is the nature of Euro-Amerikan classes to be militarist. If "The Invasion" has an effect, it will be among people who aren't involved in power struggle anyway, such as intellectuals and middle-class people predisposed to psychological explanations of war, and the type to buy a John Lennon CD to "save Darfur" by funding neo-colonial reformists.
The most memorable movie in recent years resembling "The Invasion" is "I, Robot" (2004), although one is about a disease-like intelligent life form from outer space, and the other is about robots and machines. Both depict a non-humyn intelligence with immense power that takes over the planet and offers humyns survival without war. "I, Robot," starring Will Smith as a cop, depicts a machine (a "positronic operating core" named "VIKI," for "virtual interactive kinetic intelligence") that takes advantage of the widespread use of androids in various aspects of society, at least throughout the First World. Due to a unique interpretation of Isaac Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics, the machine gets the idea that "revolution" is necessary to keep humyns safe -- from each other. "You cannot be trusted with your own survival." "The created must sometimes protect the creator. Even against his will." At VIKI's instruction, the robots overpower the humyns to stop them from warring against each other and destroying themselves by making the planet uninhabitable.
The end of "I, Robot" glorifies taking control back from the robots, with the help of a robot who values being "free." Since a robot or artificial intelligence takeover is just the stuff of sci-fi fantasy for most viewers, "I, Robot" reinforces a vague idea of freedom and stirs up fears about unnamed threats to freedom. In the real world, humyns' controlling their own destiny, "finding their own way," means First World nations' dominating Third World nations and social groups with different amounts of power dominating each other.
"The Invasion" is a step above "I, Robot" in that "Invasion" raises a similar idea, a non-humyn force that tries to remake humyns' relationships with each other in an authoritarian way, but is more ambiguous than "I, Robot" about the drawbacks of non-humyn rule. "I, Robot" suggests a loss of freedom for each generation of humyns to control its own destiny, freedom valued for its own sake. "The Invasion," on the other hand, emphasizes a loss of humanity itself, something that makes humyns humyn: emotion. "The Invasion" is ambivalent toward its own ending; maybe losing their humanity would have been worth it if people could have lived in peace. It also reflects an ambivalence toward psychiatry: People associate using psychiatric medicine with a loss of self and regret that, but think the stability the medicine gives may outweigh the loss of humanity. People have said "Invasion" is both anti- and pro-psychiatry because of the connection between Nicole Kidman and Scientology, stereotypically associated anti-psychiatry. Not really going so far as to be anti-psychiatry, "Invasion" just reflects common anxieties amerikans have about psychiatry. "Invasion" is unconvincing as a critique of psychiatry and in fact reinforces certain kinds of psychological thinking by locating the causes of war in humyn psychology, rather than social structures, but the general ambivalence of "Invasion" is better than "I, Robots"'s decidedly knee-jerk reaction to the idea of anything threatening the freedom of First Worlders. In "The Invasion," Kidman's character fights the aliens, because she doesn't want her son to become like the zombie-aliens and her ex-husband-turned-alien, but at the end of the movie Bennell wonders whether fighting the invaders is really worth it overall. By contrast, the detective in "I, Robot" just has a robophobic hunch and turns out to be right (not about Sonny, but other robots) from the movie's perspective. "I, Robot" celebrates First Worlders' instincts, whereas Bennell, in "Invasion," recognizes (albeit probably because of her psychiatry background) that an intellectual question is involved.
"The Invasion" and "I, Robot" raise scenarios that are superficially based in fantasy and fears about artificial intelligence going out of control that don't really reverberate today in a specific political way, but it is useful to think about the concept of an authoritarian caretaker. Amerikan movies about invasions almost invariably reflect fears about the Euro-Amerikan nation's losing its position of dominance. "Invasion" has a pessimistic view of violence, humyn nature, and humyns' ability to overcome violence, and, in the worst case, contributes to the idea that violence can actually be ended by psychology or some other form of non-power struggle. "Invasion" raises an interesting what-if scenario, though. The aliens claim to end not only war, but also exploitation. (Although, "Invasion" only shows the aliens bringing harmony between people, not changing economic conditions in and between countries, as if there could be peace with ending exploitation.) If an outside force external to any humyn control offered to end the oppression of humyns of humyns and keep the humyn species alive, in exchange for humyns' losing the ability to control their destiny, should people accept? Those who believe that fighting wars is in humyn nature and self-centeredness is humyn nature are compelled to accept alien rule or rule by artificial intelligence if the only alternative is more war, leading to a nuclear catastrophe killing off the species. People who think humyns are inherently violent and exploitive toward each other and think that no social system can surmount that have no basis to oppose a takeover by artificial intelligence and robots unless they are resigned to living in a world with violence and exploitation.
That is just a hypothetical to test how honest anti-communist believers in selfish, violent "human nature" really are if they have an interest in the survival of the species. The real world issue is whether the First World is going to accept rule by the global oppressed, as Germany was forced to accept rule by an outside force when it was defeated in World War Ii. Of course, the First World oppressors won't give up without a fight, but, as "The Invasion" acknowledges implicitly, life as First Worlders know it is doomed. "The Invasion" unfortunately stops short of the truth by posing what is a dilemma only for the petty-bourgeois mode of thought: peace with a loss of humanity, or a world rife with war. Revolution is out of the question for "The Invasion" and for Dr. Bennell, who is single-mindedly focused on saving herself and her son from conversion and, at the end of the movie, just contemplates the benefits of the peace the aliens offer from the comfort of knowing that the aliens are going to be defeated anyway, because of help Bennell gave; how convenient, after things have already been put in motion and Bennell no longer has a choice in the aliens' survival. It is like the dilemma the oppressors raise to justify psychology: either accept psychology and its individualizing and controlling perspective, or have an uncomfortable life in imperialist society, but forget about revolution. Psychology, its fixes for individuals' problems, and its so-called solutions for other things, appeal to those for whom revolution isn't a possibility. Because of its ambivalent ending, "Invasion" is marginally better than "I, Robot," but "Invasion" is a dud even just as an anti-war movie, diminishing its own pacifist potential with a message of despair over humanity's supposedly violent and warlike nature.