Immortal (Ad Vitam) (2004)

 

Director: Enki Bilal

Screenplay: Enki Bilal and Serge Lehman

Based on the comics La Foire aux immortels and La Femme piège by Enki Bilal

Cast: Linda Hardy as Jill; Thomas Kretschmann as Nikopol; Charlotte Rampling as Elma Turner; Yann Collette as Froebe; Frédéric Pierrot as John; Thomas M. Pollard as Horus; Joe Sheridan as Allgood; Corinne Jaber as Lily Liang

Ephemeral Waves

 

What the hell, it's a naked guy with a bird's head!

Immortal is a difficult movie to deal with. For the most part, this is actually catnip even with its weird creative decisions for me, the creation of Enki Bilal, a Yugoslav emigrant to France and comic book artist who, alongside his prolificness, was making films before Immortal already. In terms of a set-up, Immortal is clearly indebted to a world of science fiction, let alone The Fifth Element (1997), alongside Bilal's own work, which if you see stands out exceptionally. The film, a complex mess to unravel, had enough in terms of a bizarre scenario to stand out but also has too many things to factor in why this is a difficult film to recommend.

Staying with the good, this is 3095 in New York City. A giant floating Egyptian pyramid is inecplicably floating above in the skyline. The trope of a dystopia of corrupt corporations, here literally a medical group called Eugenic, exists, this one partaking in illegal medical experiments. There are non-humans, deemed dangerous, stuck in Level 3, where humans are warned to avoid, whilst Central Park has become an "Intrusion Zone", a frozen winter environment where people attempting to enter usually die, spat out as bones when they attempt to enter, and penguins are wandering about for no reason. In terms of world building, Bilal's eye is deliciously weird. Science fiction, I will be honest, is more interest if vivid in world building and/or bizarre. Here a side character, the most beloved for me called Willie, sets up how idiosyncratic this can be as they are a sentient phantom dispenser in a hotel bathroom, one who can provide a handgun as he can, in his cute way, toothpaste from a wall he is stuck to.

In seriousness as well, even the clichéd bleak dystopia of flying cars and artificially generated lungs made in China is not an issue, as it feels immersive, allowing for the stranger details to contrast, the bleak grey and CGi created world a prop to allow the more idiosyncratic content to stand out. That the Egyptian God Horus has to sire a child in seven days, entering the human world, to keep his immortality, which becomes the main crux of the narrative; that a mysterious blue haired woman named Jill exists who is completely alien in form, who weeps blue tears that can even fill a bathtub; that flying monstrous hammerhead sharks, blood red, exist as a species that once were a threat, here appearing as a humanoid one and the regular flying variety.

Here we get to the first immediate issue with Immortal however, even if for me this is not an issue, as it is an aesthetic concept other viewers would not be tolerant on. This probably should have been animated - it almost already is. Most of the side cast, including major characters like the corrupt senator Allgood, are digitally animated models. The main cast however are real actors. Jill as played by Linda Hardy. Horus' final host, after causing seven to explode when their bodies are too sick or full of implants to host him, is Nikopol, a man whose influence is responsible for the anti-Eugenic holographic signs appearing everywhere in the city, abruptly woken from his cryogenic imprisonment when the tub falls from the sky, played by German actor Thomas Kretschmann. The legendary British actress Charlotte Rampling plays Elma Turner, a doctor who becomes fascinated with Jill and takes her in from the police; made to wear an unfortunate headpiece, she can nonetheless act her way around it.  

The contrast to almost everyone else being animated, and with a limited budget despite the ambition, is strange but I can still appreciate its curious mishmash of content. Where the issues come around, which I and other viewers will agree is problematic, is the plot. Specifically in regards to Horus' goal first. Alongside the ultimate reveal that this is a plot never properly told, Jill for obvious reasons is a unique entity who cries blue tears and exists from another dimension, becoming more and more human but of an unnatural form which makes her ideal for Horus's plans. Obviously, Horus' goal is problematic, to want to conceive a child quickly, in that we are dealing with rape as a subject. You would presume the idea is that, near death originally missing a leg from his awakening, Nikopol is stuck in an unfortunate situation of playing host to an entity, like Gods in mythology, who has no concept of modern morality. This is still morally dicey, but it is a premise you can tell in how, if you dealt with it right, this is about of gods involving themselves in the human world but committing acts thinking they are above us or in part of a goal which however the humans will argue against, such as the tale of Leda and the swan¹.  

Nikopol himself is one of them objecting to this, especially as he falls in love with Jill and does not want to be a willing participant, and that would be part of the narrative if fleshed out that would make this a compelling film even if one some would understandably feel uncomfortable to want to watch.  Adding to the issue is that, improvising him a leg from a subway train rail, Nikopol has an additional factor alongside the fact Horus can control him on will that he cannot move said leg without the God within him, so he is a trapped host having to argue against an entity doing things he does not want. Immortal would still be dealing with uncomfortable subject matter, which jars against its stranger content and jokes, such as the Egyptian Gods up in the floating pyramid playing Monopoly in one scene, but tackling the conflict between God and human would be fascinating, with Jill the unfortunate stuck between this on her road in fate.

However is it indeed uncomfortable, despite Nikolai not being a willing subject, how much rape plays a part in this as it does, even if mostly dealt with off-screen. It happens but the repercussions are never dealt with. It was more the fact Nikolai and Jill begin a romance soon into this, with a surprising amount of time "rape" and "the rapist" in himself being in the dialogue, that we are in really uncomfortable and undefendable content. In general, Jill is used in a way that, come least a decade later, would not be defendable at all, in that she is just a cipher. An idealised figure, played by a former model, who eventually to become human loses all her memories, and has erased at opportunistic times when involved with a botched kidnapping. Despite being a character to sell the film, in her distinct pale white face and blue hued features, is honestly a prop, even before you have to deal with the problematic content of sexual violence that is explicitly here.

What makes this worse, and a much more problematic film then when a film merely includes rape, is that Immortal's biggest problem is that none of its plot points ultimately have a point, making those decisions in how to handle gender politics and Jill worse. This very hastily wraps up with a bland romance, deeply problematic in context, and not really using its enticing points at all. There is no point to Central Park being frozen over barring as a final location. Charlotte Rampling's character has no real point at all, wasting a legendary actress, nor the CGI character of a detective, a figure who, alongside a previous history with the floating red sharks when one bit part of his face off, is seemingly to follow the trajectory of being involved in the main plot, including finding about Allgood's corruption, and contribute. He does not have a point, the red shark is dispatched hastily, and Allgood and the entire Eugenic Corporation is never really of importance. Even in mind this is based on stories in a world of Bilal's, this feels hurried and slight. It of course feels a bad position for Bilal to have left himself, when for the most part this film is an elaborate sci-fi film, that the main plot involved the rather unsavoury content it does and rushes all the interesting ideas after so much set-up.

It is fascinating, undoubtedly so. Immortal however becomes less than the sum of its parts by its finale, becoming far less interesting then the film it was beginning. One really tasteless plot aspect does derail the film horrifically, and it is weird to find a film which has so many strange ideas, and an aesthetic most would call ill advised but I found compelling, only become padding and ultimately resolve itself in the blandest way possible. Two of the worst things you can be are predictable, and be tone deaf in objectionable content, and Immortal's interesting features are sadly lost within both.

 

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1) Leda, an Aetolian princess, who the Greek god Zeus turned into a swan to seduce or rape depending on the telling of the myth; the blurring in that last part may come off as some as problematic, which is entirely understandable, and is only upon reflection that, becoming a subject depicted in countless paints of classical art alone, making it still a contentious myth, least in reminding you how adult and dark Greek mythology was in talking about complex concepts even with its Gods, that has been interpreted in a variety of ways