I love how this film makes no sense and is justified while doing it. To portray an alien, an utter alien, one must illustrate it in such a way that it would become a thing of no origin and no aim whatsoever, at least in comprehensible . In that way, paradoxically, it would give way to a process of understanding beyond intelligibility. The film does that wonderfully in two s: while we, as viewers, are alienated from it, it alienates itself by trying to be like us—double alienation.
Winona Ryder as a super-automaton, an Auton, a robot that is produced by its kind, with a program of Asimovesque quality, of humanist nature, capturing the soul of techno-Renaissance. Sigourney Weaver as a haemal clone, a virus-like being who can telepathically communicate with the Aliens and has necro-Oedipal intentions. And the Alien as the non-Alien, a cross-breed xenomorphic mutation based on both the human and the Alien gene, the first and the last of its species, a perfect heteroduplex. Y2K sci-fi.
No film ever portrays non-identification better than this one, I reckon. It moves against the tide in of characterization in an extreme fashion: the character as we know it starts the journey as one and gradually loses herself through a global and fierce voyage. Logistically accelerating into non-identity: in the end, that is what the film is all about.
How immensely touching this was. I barely held my tears. It is one of the most magnificent elegies cinema ever gave way to. How wonderful it must have been to have the chance to honor your loved one with something like this. It felt like it was a sacrament. It is more of a blessing than a film.
If the world moves not in episodic cuts but simultaneous flows, one must superimpose it to make some sense out of it. To create an image of the world, especially today’s world, one must embrace the form that identifies it. As a technique, and perhaps like no other technique, superimposition is at the heart of the 21st century’s time-image aesthetics. And because of just that, it’s the ultimate metaphor of contemporary cinematics.
