'Species' -- Is there anybody out there?
'Species' -- Is there anybody out there?
By Jane Freebury
JAKARTA (JP): Director Roger Donaldson's latest film Species
opens with a sequence which introduces a chilling proposition --
that you will be witness to an execution. As onlookers implicated
in ghastly events, with a shudder you reach for explanations as
cylinders of cyanide are set in place. But then, with a single
bound, the adolescent female in the chamber, suddenly finding
extraordinary strength within, springs through the glass walls,
escaping the gassing that is to exterminate her, liberating you
from your growing sense of horror.
This is the world of science fiction cinema, where anything is
possible -- from monsters and extraterrestrials to future
scenarios. As soon as we learn the young girl is a scientific
experiment going wrong and that she carries in her the potential
to destroy the human race, we can relax about the extermination
since it is a question of either her survival or ours, nothing
less.
Events are quick to explain: a reply has been received to a
message beamed twenty years ago into deep space. The original
message contained information about the human race, including
specifications of its DNA code. The reply received contains an
alien DNA sequence together with instructions, deemed friendly,
on how it could be combined with our own. They are followed and
the outcome is an apparently normal female child, whom the
scientists call Sil.
Excepting that her development has been extraordinarily
accelerated, she seems an apparently normal 13-year-old, until
spines are noticed growing out of her back during sleep and her
makers determine that she is something more than a budding
teenager.
It is time to terminate the six-week-old experiment. It's too
late, for she has already surpassed them. Crashing out of her
glass bubble, with instincts for self-preservation uppermost, she
jumps onto a train and roars out of the Utah desert, away from
the compound where she was hatched.
Tracking her down becomes the plot line imperative.
In science fiction, tradition has it that wherever there is a
bizarre experiment there is a mad scientist behind it with
something to answer for. In Species, the suggestion is that it is
chief scientist Ben Kingsley's Xavier Fitch, with features
reassembled to look like the masterful and objective face of
science. He is the team-leader responsible for creating Sil. His
responsibility quickly switches to eliminating her and he heads a
team of experts brought together to help track her down.
The team drawn to track Sil down are easier to relate to. They
are Michael Madsen as a former Marine specialist in
extermination, with Alfred Molina as a gentle anthropology
professor and authority in cross-cultural behavior, Marg
Helgenberger as a molecular biologist and the Forest Whitaker
character as a psychic or "empathy" with the intuitive ability to
understand other people, including those who are only half-human.
Sil is an ambiguous enemy, predatory but sometimes having the
appearance of the prey, not entirely the monster easy to fear and
hate. Whether she is precisely a cyborg -- in science fiction
generic terms, this is the combination of man and machine, like
our good friend Arnold Schwarzenegger's Terminator, or the
"replicants" in Ridley Scott's Blade Runner -- she is precisely
the result of human manipulation in reproduction technology.
Her ambiguity as a creature half-human and half-other
challenges the boundaries that we thought existed between
ourselves and the alien. It is Species' paradox that Sil is hard
to hate, the team members agree, and easy to feel some sympathy
for the young creature being hunted down.
When Sil has finally been put to rest (or has she?), how can
we account for such mayhem? Fear of the future, fear of the
unknown and fear of ourselves and our capabilities? A tradition
of many science fiction films is to critique science and
technology, and sure enough, it is here too. Science has been at
it again, flouting the natural laws and tampering with life's
precious balance. On this occasion it is not disturbing the
natural environment but disturbing natural process by conducting
experiments in reproductive technology. The critique is at least
as established as Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.
Under New Zealander Donaldson's direction, Species barrels
along with all the energy of an action drama. No waltz in space
this one, Stanley Kubrick style! And thank heavens there is
little sentiment, Spielberg style. The screenplay is a bit
disappointing; so much more could have been drawn from this
interesting idea. What if communication is received from other
life in space? How will we respond? And some of the parts are
underwritten -- Ben Kingsley's in particular, is a potentially
interesting character, from whom we have very little indeed.
However, Species is to be recommended. It is held tightly
together, is nimble and sure-footed. Looks good too. Even if
Species is somewhat derivative and you have seen it all already
-- all the terminators, the aliens and the blade runners --
Species should still get under your skin.