USA, 1978
"28 DAYS LATER"
UK, 2002
"Then Cain went out from the presence of the LORD, and settled in the land of Nod, east of Eden. Cain had relations with his wife and she conceived, and gave birth to Enoch; and he built a city, and called the name of the city Enoch, after the name of his son." - Genesis 4:16-17 (NASB)
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Major West: "This is what I've seen in the four weeks since infection - people killing people, which is much what I saw in the four weeks before infection, and the four weeks before that, and before that, as far back as I care to remember - people killing people. Which, in my mind, puts us in a state of normality right now."
This is one of two key scenes in Danny Boyle's "28 Days Later," a filmic treatise on the nature of civilization. The second key scene occurs between Jim and Selena, during their trip to Manchester, when the Darwinian Selena finally concedes to Jim's worldview. Ever since a deadly virus transformed most of the British populace into murderous zombies, Selena has considered pure survival to be "as good as it gets." After spending a few days with Jim, along with their newfound friends Frank and his teenage daughter Hannah, she begins to doubt herself.
"28 Days Later" is both a doppelganger and inversion of George Romero's "Dawn of the Dead." The similarities between the films are obvious - the differences are subtler, and more important. Both films provide apocalyptic scenarios, often ignoring the patterns of the traditional horror flick - instead, these films examine the collapse of civilization, and the trouble of rebuilding it. "28 Days Later" and "Dawn of the Dead" are more in tune with "Lord of the Flies" than "Evil Dead."
Most importantly, both films share a common thesis: humanity is ugly. In both "Dawn" and "28 Days Later," it is the humans, not the zombies, who pose the greatest threat to their fellow humans. The films' theses diverge, however, when they examine how these villainous humans relate to civilization.
Since Romero's "Night of the Living Dead" (USA, 1968), the zombie subgenre has been an unlikely catalyst for thoughtful filmmaking. Chills and cheese comfortably share the screen with grander subjects (proving that horror films can be the most interesting films of all). In "Night," the subject is familial structure. In Romero's sequel, "Dawn of the Dead," the subject is societal structure.
Both "Dawn" and "28 Days Later" are stories of survivors. In "Dawn," these survivors take refuge in an abandoned shopping mall. There, they find all the tools and necessities of civilization - food, weapons, energy, entertainment, etc. They slowly begin to rebuild, keeping their enemies (the zombies) in permanent check. This lasts for several months, and they slowly regain the sanity and satisfaction they knew before the zombies. Their plans go awry, however, when a nomadic biker gang invades, looting the mall and destroying their homes. They are forced back into the wilderness, where they must find another haven and start again.
In "28 Days Later," the opposite occurs. It is the wanderers, and not the builders, who are the heroes. They do not seek to recreate society so much as reconnect with humanity - they are more concerned with family than with civilization. In their struggle to survive, they discover an entire brigade of soldiers who've shielded themselves against "the infected" (i.e., men and women driven mad by a manufactured virus that throws its victims into a murderous rage). These soldiers have made plans for reconstruction, including the reorganization of agriculture, the reinstitution of government, repopulation, and (above all) "the answer to infection."
The soldiers quickly prove to be more dangerous than the infected. Their plan for repopulation includes taking advantage of Selena and the young Hannah, and stopping anyone who voices the slightest moral protest. Their strategies of defense are based on the crudest definitions of what is and is not "human" (while Jim hesitates to kill an infected, and feels remorse afterwards, the soldiers don't think twice about the implications of their nightly shootings). In "28 Days Later," civilization is founded on humankind's ugliest characteristics. Cold necessity, and not familial warmth, is the bedrock of human society.
In "Dawn," it is the survivors in the mall, and not the wandering looters, who express remorse for the necessary killings. For Romero, order and humaneness are connected. The bike gang observes none of the conventions of civilization - within their brotherhood, chaos and amorality abound. Only within the organizing principles of society is goodness and sanity achieved.
In "28 Days Later," it is the organizing principles of society that produce evil and insanity. This is implicit in the film's first shots, which portray riots and equally violent riot-control. These images are being shown to a chimpanzee that has been infected, by scientists, with the deadly virus. This virus does not exist in nature, but is a creation of medical science (think "Frankenstein," another horror subgenre of fascinating depth). The virus is forcibly given to apes in inhumane animal testing facilities - the virus is unwittingly released by animal rights activists whose hearts are in the right place, but whose actions are devastating. The message here is clear - civilization is a mess; humans can't do anything right.
In the Hebrew Bible, civilization begins with Cain, who is expelled from the familial structure after murdering his brother. Forced into exile, Cain fears for his life. In this respect, the Biblical narrative may resemble "Dawn of the Dead" - there is an organized center, and those outside that center live according to the principles of chaos and destruction. There is only amorality for those beyond the civilized center.
Such an interpretation is mistaken. Firstly, Cain's family is hardly the bedrock of civilization. Their relationships toward one another resemble not the mall-inhabiting survivors in "Dawn" so much as the wandering band (Jim, Selena, Frank, Hannah) in "28 Days Later." Secondly, this First Family is never shown "building civilization" - that role is assigned to Cain, who is the first Biblical character to found a city.
Cain's lineage, which might be called "the lineage of civilization," is starkly contrasted against Seth's lineage. Cain's sons build tools, farms, cities, and nations. They are not shepherds, but governors and warriors. It is in their spirit that the Tower of Babel is constructed (Cain's lineage crosses paths with Seth's, giving his seed a place in the post-Flood world). This "lineage of civilization" relies neither on God, nor the earth, but on the fruit its own hands.
Time and again throughout the Biblical text, the natural and God-ordained order of things is subverted in favor of the principles of civilization. When the Israelites build the Golden Calf, when they demand a king instead of judges, when David takes a census of the people, when Jonah demands the destruction of Nineveh, when Peter cuts the soldier's ear - these are moments when men succumb to their own nature, when the principles of civilization are favored over the principles of God.
"28 Days Later" is a brilliant indictment against civilization. It reveals that, more often than not, men resort to tyranny, self-harm, and devaluing human worth. Existence cannot be based on pure survival, lest the life of others become cheap. It is in the reflection and intelligence of the individual, so often opposed to the values of society, that we discover the best way to live: for, and not simply with, one another.
For more on "28 Days Later," check out A.O. Scott's great review from the New York Times. For more on "Dawn of the Dead," check out this fanpage.
