28 Days Later

 

Monkey raging in their cages, activists breaking them out and getting the activist infected.  That is followed by panic, fear, and instinct for survival. That is what the first couple of minutes of 28 days later show viewers.  Funny thing with the movie is that the infected are not the vocal point of the movie (and in a sense that could be said about a lot of zombie genre movies.).  Instead the movie covers several different topics including hedonism of western civilization, increase of violence in our daily media, and in some cases; Christianity.  The movie’s plot takes place 28 Days Later after the introduction.  A young man played by Cillian Murphy wakes up from a coma that was in before the infection and sees that the busy city that he was in now abandoned and is trying to figure out why and survive.  The movie could be interpreted in a number of ways.  It could be called a theatrical documentary on what could happen if humans could be mindless and violent through infection or 

looks safe enough

Probably the most terrifying part of the movie is when Jim (Cillian Murphy) wakes up from his coma and finds nothing anywhere.  The hospital he wakes up from is trashed and abandoned.  He leaves and finds the very city of London completely trashed and abandoned.  London is one of the busiest cities in the world. It is basically the New York of Great Britain.  So when the viewer sees that very city abandoned and lifeless, it brings in the tension as to how of what would of caused something like this.  Keep in mind that Jim just woke up from a coma.  He is weak, disoriented, and confused with no one there to help him.  The very atmosphere of London is captured perfectly thanks to the way the whole scene was filmed.  The filming of the scene (and the movie in general) was made using a Canon XL-1 digital camera. It was not the best camera in the world; in fact it wasn’t that good.  I was in production in 1997 and discontinued in 2001.  That’s about a year after the film came out in Europe and almost two years after it came out in the United States.  The reason for mentioning the camera for this scene is the fact that the very grainy and low cost of the camera is what makes the scene even more unsettling.  The scene looks like something from an old documentary film. It has a very outdated look which definitely helps extend the comfortableness of the scenario that Jim has himself in and an uncomfortable feeling that the audience is looking at. It is kind of like the description that Mark Borchardt from American Movie described the look of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre (IMDB).  It reminds the viewer of something from science class (cinemassacre).  Now what does that mean?  Look back into high school especially if the science building was built in the 90’s.  It has grainy look to it and uneasiness to it like someone died there.  That is the feeling the introduction gives Jim and the audience and that is before Jim is introduced to the infected.  

I stand corrected

The scene also introduces the infected and Jim trying to avoid them.  The infected (or running zombies depending on who is talking about the movie), act much differently than zombies were portrayed in past movies.  While they maintain a sort of mindless goal, they act on it aggressively and quickly.  These antagonists move fast, and vomit blood on others in order to spread the infection.  It is a type of rabies that infects in seconds. Jim’s first encounter with an infected happen to be in a church where he sees countless bodies (and some stragglers) and an infected priest.  Danny Boyle puts on religious symbolism in this scene by having the scene go on with the religious song Ave Maria playing in the scene.  The very song itself has a deep religious meaning to it in which in Latin means Hail Mary.  It could represent on how some religions are a crux to some violence in the world or the infected may represent some people who mindless follow what religion preaches rather than teaches.  From the introduction to Jim waking up from the hospital to his confrontation with the infected happens in a span of 15 minutes.  In just 15 minutes, the world of the movie is defined, the main character is introduced without much exposition, and the main crux of the movie is revealed and established and that was without an hour of exposition something that the Matrix had to many of in its introduction.

As far as the infected characters in their role in the movie, they represent rage.  It is one of the central forces and drives of the plot and it is not just tied to the infected but to humans as well.  Rage is the relation to society in which is one of the main causes of war, and one of overall causes of violence in society.  Danny Boyle shoots this movie as a social commentary in which how rage could lead to the downfall of society a whole.  We as a society are exposed to violence in some way or another whether it is on television, movies, video games and especially the internet.  We have access to these sorts of things.  With technology increasing every year, we have more exposure to these things.  Whether those things involve violence or a phase that is taken the wrong way, rage has been exposed more than it was back in the 20^th century.  Even the smallest things could lead someone into a rage fueled agenda.  One of the best examples of rage causing the downfall of society is the very beginning of the movie.  Protesters are violently trying to get into a test lab in which scientist is testing new serums on monkeys.  The protesters violently break in and despite constant warnings that a foreign and unknown virus is inside these monkeys, they ignore it and release them from their cages and that is how the infection started; rage.  The protestors could not control their emotions. If they settled this in a calm matter, the infection would not have spread.  Instead their rage causes this to happen.  It was their rage that doomed their people and as far as the audience is aware of, humanity itself.

Citations

 Rolfe, James. "Cinemassacre Videos for IOS and Android." Cinemassacre Productions RSS. Cinemassacre, 17 Oct. 2007. Web. 20 Apr. 2013. <http://cinemassacre.com/2007/10/17/texas-chainsaw-massacre/>.

"American Movie." IMDb: The Internet Movie Database. IMDb.com-Amazon.com,1990-2010. Web. 27 Apr. 2013. <http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0181288/>.