28 weeks later

Music: Kings of Convenience: Riot On An Empty Street (2004)

My sincere thanks to everyone who has sent notes of empathy regarding the plumbing/mold situation. Truth be told, I did buy a condo because I considered this a transition place to a stand-alone bungalow, some future time when I was financially, emotional, and career-ily ready for a family. The idea was "minimal upkeep," more time to write a book or two. It appears I'll be spending the entire month of may, perhaps part of June, getting things back to square one. It is good that I took on summer teaching to pay for this; it's not good for scholarship with what will be, I reckon, lots of noise. Anyhoo: today I sit here in front of the screens waiting for the phone to ring; with luck the mold scientist will come today and get the process one step closer to the sledgehammers.

Meanwhile, I've been trying to ignore my impatient neighbor by escaping the house here and there. This weekend Brooke and I saw 28 Weeks Later, the sequel to the exquisitely/brilliantly made 28 Days Later, a hallmark in zombie film. The latter achieved what Romeo did in 1969: it changed the direction of thinking about one of the most important monsters of our time from the slow moving undead to the ravenous and quick-moving. I was highly skeptical of a sequel because the first film was so well done (it was a drama/action film that happened to have zombies); reviews touted the remake as more action-oriented and disgusting.

Although the version was not as good as the first, it was surprisingly very well done and a respectable extension of the mythos. The drama elements are intact (again, the zombie elements are still the ruse), and the story revolves more around military decision-making than it does the Logan's Run element (although there is still, like in the first, "the run"). Barring one or two poor actors, the acting is well-done. Care was taken to use many of the same filming techniques, and the same artist was drafted to do the soundtrack. Juan Carlos Fresnadillo directed the film and there are discernable differences with his direction from Boyle's: the attack scenes are much grosser; there are obvious shout-outs to horror film standards (the scene with night vision is brilliant!); and there are virtually no references to Romero's trilogy.

I don't want to spoil the film for anyone because it's just released, so I'll offer an observation and a provocation. First: what's so refreshing about film making from foreigners is that there is some attempt to represent with a commitment to authenticity, and often at the expense of patriotism. As a consequence of a recent phone interview as a pop culture expert last week, I've been thinking about the idea that Hollywood and its productions are today's "safe patriotism." I was asked to comment on the demise of the Aladdin Casio in Las Vegas, and its rebirth as Planet Hollywood. I said that in our political climate---and now that the summer blockbuster season is upon us---Hollywood is the safe patriotism these days; the sentiment is written into film dialogue.

So what the hell does this have to do with 28 Weeks Later? Well, the film tackles some familiar themes vis-à-vis the American military. Arguably one can say it is a critique of US forces, while others could argue it is a subtle support of US military action in Iraq (Brooke suggested the later). I don't see the film as doing either; it seems to want to sit on the fence on the issue. What the film does do, however, is avoid the patriotic cliché: [tiny spoiler ahead] in one of my favorite scenes a daughter encounters her father, now returned as a ravenous zombie. As the father feasts on his son, the daughter calls his name. She blows her father to bits, and then (convincingly) begins to cry. Now, if this was an American film, the daughter would not have cried, but shown a strong and determined face and said something like, "this ones for mother!"

Second, the provocation: one thing that Brooke and I noticed is that no attempt is made to figure race relations. In the first film, race was advanced as one of the thorny issues the film was trying to negotiate. In 28 Weeks Later, the focus is overwhelmingly white. There was only once scene in which some racial commentary is made (the military orders snipers to only shoot zombies, not civilians; the first man that is shot is a black man). The rest of the film is devoid of racial commentary---which is odd, given the fact that the zombie film as such has always been most directly about the racialized other. So, what's going on here?

Overall, it's worth seeing. I might go see it again.