Sunshine

22 April 2007

Gerard Wood

Sunshine is director Danny Boyle and author Alex Garland’s third and most satisfying movie collaboration to date. Their first, The Beach (2000), was based on Garland’s outstanding debut novel of the same name. With a screenplay by John Hodge, it’s not clear how much of an input Garland had in the making of the film and while it was gripping it was not an entirely successful translation of the text to film (but then what is?) Sunshine is their second apocalyptic vision of the near future, preceded by 2002’s exceedingly grim 28 Days Later.

Strictly speaking 28 Days Later is post-apocalyptic - there are a handful of survivors (of a lethal virus known as Rage) and an inkling of hope for our species, although we’ll have to wait for 28 Weeks Later, slated for a May 2007 release, to find out for certain (Boyle is not directing and Garland didn’t write the script, although both are listed as Producers).

In Sunshine, the apocalypse is underway but this time around the ante has been well and truly upped: there won’t be any survivors of this one. The sun is dying and the crew of the Icarus II is on a mission to save the day (quite literally as it turns out) by delivering a “payload” into the heart of the sun: a bomb the size of Manhattan Island that will, theoretically, reignite the dying star.

Ironically, this vision of the end-of-days demonstrates more optimism of (and for) humankind than the survival story in 28 Days Later. For starters, we’re let off the hook for once: the impending termination of life on our planet is emphatically not due to our negligence, stupidity or misuse of science. We didn’t do it.

Really.

Inexplicably (in the sense that no explanation is provided and there’s actually no scientific rational for it) the sun is dying several billion years ahead of schedule. So, ipso facto, it ain’t our fault!

Or is it?

A number of reviews find a strong theological undercurrent in the movie. On the face of it this isn’t all that unreasonable as there are pointers in the script: a pagan salute to the Sun as God (giver and taker of life); the ranting of a deranged religious fanatic, the captain of the first Icarus mission, who claims to have spent the last seven years in communion with God; a throw-away comment about the crew of Icarus I having experienced an epiphany (which is true enough if you deify the Sun); and then, of course, there is the voyage itself, that SF standard, a journey into the great unknown, and at the end, an encounter with … the Great Unknown.

Putting aside the fact that the only sustained discourse about God actually comes from the insane (though undeniably demonic) Captain of Icarus I, there are reasonable grounds for a theological reading of the movie. Quite simply it is the inexplicability of the Sun’s demise itself. There’s no reason for it; there’s not even a scientific justification for it. It just is.

In the end it’s downright metaphysical.

And in that case, maybe we are the agents of our destruction. The Hand of God, as the insane captain of Icarus I implies, is manifest in the Sun’s rapid and inexplicable decline. It’s a sign of His/Her/Their divine displeasure. And as the genocidal captain argues, who are we to question or, worse still, thwart the will of God?

(Just as an aside, this does beg the question: how on earth did this religious fanatic achieve captaincy of the most important mission in the history of humankind?)

It’s probably fairly clear that I think this is a furphy. Which is not to say that god is not present in the movie, it’s just that god’s presence is not Divine. It is only apparent in the actions– good and bad – of the human players.

By removing the issues of our culpability for the demise of our planet (global warming, for instance) Boyle and Garland are able to focus on other questions than our responsibility (which are important, but moot in the real world after all, as we’ve been caught red-handed!) Instead they focus on our humanity: the best and worst in us. The Divine and the Demonic. They pose questions about self-sacrifice for the greater good; the sacrifice of others; the taking of life and the giving of life. The movie doesn’t shy away from the worst in us (how could the team that brought us 28 Days Later?): at the end there is a demonic man striving to achieve the death of us all in the name of God, and a man and woman willing to sacrifice themselves for the good of all – godlike – reigniting the sun. The two halves of our nature. The good and the bad.

And in the end it is the best in us that shines through, brighter than the dying sun.

So, a verdict? It’s an intelligent, visually arresting movie, well scripted and well acted.

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