Monsters (2010) is a modern-day imaginary monster film which, as with many motion pictures in the horror/monster genre, serves as a social commentary, touching upon contemporary geopolitical issues and general population anxieties (Carroll, 1981). Bordwell and Thompson (2003) identifies a horror film as being "recognizable by its planned emotional influence on the audience", and this film successfully does this, although more subtly than other motion pictures in the genre. The diegesis of the film, based in Mexico, is a global in which the 'monsters' of the subject are huge squid-like aliens which, for the past 6 years, have inhabited a huge portion of Mexico which has now been quarantined as an 'infected area', with a huge wall being created on the Mexico-USA border to keep carefully the aliens out. The film practices a shooter (Kaulder) and his bosses child (Sam) as he reluctantly attempts to escort her easily back again to her father in the USA following a rogue alien assault left her hurt; and the relationship that blossoms between your two throughout their ordeal.
I will show how this film uses these aliens with remarkable, symbolic effect to also become an allegorical narrative for current societal issues; offering a semiotic analysis of these underlying themes and signifiers within the film. The immediate research will be of the aliens themselves, yet the interaction and reaction of humans with the aliens also holds other meanings, and will be considered.
Prior to the beginning credits of the film a short textual narrative clarifies that alien life was launched to earth because of this of any failed NASA objective, resulting in the area being quarantined as an 'infected zone', with the government still attempting to contain these 'animals'. The treating these creatures is allegorical compared to that of unlawful immigrants and refugees that are effectively quarantined by american governments, demonstrating how these aliens can be considered a signifying sign of your societal matter about immigration. This bears resemblance to allegories found in this year's 2009 film Region 9, another example of a film where aliens are quarantined, however in this example, the representative discourse is that of apartheid in South Africa.
In the beginning sequence of the film (post-credits) some following shots presents 'Kaulder', the cynical male protagonist of the film. The landscape is defined as he examines a collapsed building in a warzone and makes an attempt to gather information from the recovery staff at the picture. "Do you know where they take the harmed?" asks Kaulder, but has difficulty explaining his situation because of the language hurdle. This image of the warzone is elaborated throughout the film, with the mis-en-scene including tanks, weaponry and general damage. This representation is a metonymic indication, an iconic resemblance alluding to areas of real present civilian issue areas such as those in Afghanistan and Iraq, portraying the destruction of the lives of folks who live there and the difficulties faced by those who have loved ones entangled in conflict, either as a armed forces or civilian existence. Although we know that this damage was in reality caused by discord between armed forces and the aliens, what sort of world has been constructed and edited shows clear aesthetic similarities to images portrayed in the multimedia of damage in modern day warzones (these can be seen in information 1 and 2, particularly take note similarities of color and content)
Fig 1: An in the shoulder shot of the rescue staff member with the rubble from a destroyed building and a armed forces tank in the background extracted from the opening series of the film Monsters (2010) which helps build the mis-en-scene. (Monsters, 2010)
Fig 2: An identical image of a ruined building, compared to that in Fig 1. Picture taken from a genuine life conflict area in Helmand province, Afghanistan (2009) shows a US Marine patrolling this web site of damage. (Getty images, 2009)
Later on in the film we live shown some close-up injections of Sam and Kaulder in the back of a taxi, juxtaposed with point of view shots demonstrating their views of further damage and military job in what seems to be a mainly civilian area. Whilst Kaulder is eager to record this by taking photographs, Sam seems disturbed by what she sees, asking the taxi driver "Do you feel safe living here?" his response being "Where would we go? Might work, my family is all here". This symbolises the true life hardship that civilians incompatible zones have to face; they haven't any resources to migrate from the region, and even if indeed they could, they abandon their homes, family members and livelihoods.
Fig 3. A cut in shot used to emphasise the graffiti in the backdrop which, translated into English, reads "STOP THE ATTACKS", a cry from the civilian population to the US dominated military that are destroying their places and eliminating their children in makes an attempt to eliminate the aliens. (Monsters, 2010)
In a later collection, a series of cutaway pictures depict a large number of candles lit in memorial to the many deceased in a city close to the quarantined infected zone which activities huge losses due to the conflict. Cut in injections are then used to concentrate on graffiti on the wall space of surrounding complexes. Among these (fig 3) reads "Detener los ataques - 500 inactive" which translates to "stop the disorders"; another proclaims "Que boy los 'monstruos' - no bombing!" which asks 'who are the monsters?'
This is an integral, symbolic scene in the movie as it implies that in truth the civilian society feel the root of the condition is not the aliens however the heavy handed US military services opposition falling bombs and gas in an attempt to eliminate the aliens that are not particularly ambitious until provoked. Signified meanings of the graffiti information are referents of how western militaries act when getting into civilian zones, like the recent US profession in Afghanistan and Iraq. Here, the united states military conduct tedious violence in the name of the 'battle on terror', yet they bomb and damage the lives of innocent people in these civilian areas in the process. This idea is emphasized in the ultimate shot of this sequence where a passing US military services helicopter blows out candles at the candlelit vigil, alluding to the civilian lives 'blown out' by the same military.
Kaulder and Sam continue their voyage through the infected zone to the safety of the US eventually reaching the huge wall designed on the border between the USA and Mexico to keep carefully the aliens out (Fig 4).
Fig 5: A photography of a section of the existing USA-Mexico border barrier which is under development by the government in response to against the law immigration from the south. It construction has been attained with much criticism from both edges of the boundary (Ignelzi, 2007)
Fig 4: A shot from the film Monsters (2010) of the huge wall structure which has been produced by the government on the boundary between your USA and Mexico to prevent alien invasion from the south. Although over a far larger size, this bears some resemblance to the hurdle which currently prevails, constructed to overcome illegitimate immigration (Fig 5). "It's different taking a look at America from the outside" - Kaulder. (Monsters, 2010)
Although the wall bears resemblance to the prevailing barrier created on the USA-Mexico border, a deeper interpretation would be that the wall is a more abstract metaphor for the barrier that governments create via the mass media to hide the truths about their militaries engagement in armed conflicts. The public are constantly shown images of heroism by US troops, and loss of life and destruction brought on by the opposition, yet images depicting the loss of life and destruction inflicted on the civilian populations by US armed service action are almost never publicised. In the film, Americans are in physical form divided from the carnage taking place on the far side of the wall, unaware of the devastation being induced by their own military presence and the opposition those who live in the conflict area have to the US military presence. Kaulder supports this idea when he says, whilst looking at the wall "when you go back home it's so easy to forget all this, After all tomorrow we'll be back to our different lives, inside our, like, perfect suburban homes", talking about how guarded and separated those in america are to what is happening in the conflict area. This narrative symbolises the current ignorance of pointless civilian deaths in Afghanistan induced by US armed service actions.
This discourse contradicts the view presented by conventional conflict films which will typically glorify US interventions and present "the creation and duplication of discourses of American countrywide identification" (Carter, McCormack. 2006) as it is a monster film so has a totally different plan.
Eventually, Sam and Kaulder make it through the boundary back to the united states in a town which includes now been unexplainably evacuated, but are found by way of a US armed forces convoy.
Here I have evaluated geopolitical issues, using semiotic analysis, expressed as icons and features in the film Monsters, and exactly how these have been aesthetically constructed and displayed. On this film, the monsters could be metaphors for worries of immigration, and the way these folks are cared for by those in the developed world - and terrorism, considering the lives of civilians moving into conflict zones whose day to life is disrupted by warfare and armed forces occupation induced by terrorism. In addition, it questions, who will be the terrorists? These anxieties are two key referents, visualised by the aliens. Throughout I have considered the conventional use of the aliens as symbols of these anxieties, an average discourse used in movies of the monster genre. I've looked at visible similarities between instances used in the film and actuality, presenting images from the film and supplementary resources where useful, particularly considering how those people residing in and around the afflicted area resemble those moving into areas currently occupied by way of a military occurrence.
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