Zëiram (1991)

directed by Keita Amemiya

Japan

92 minutes

5 stars out of 5

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This is one of those movies that comes right out the gates swinging, with a pre-credits scene introducing not our heroes, but our fearsome alien antagonist. It's black-and-white and almost avant-garde, with deep chanting accompanying the first glimpse we get of the alien fugitive's incredible might and heavy footfalls as he seemingly wipes out an entire army of attackers just by walking in their midst. And if his design looks good in grainy monochrome, you're in for a real treat once the light hits it. Although the plot is mildly interesting, this film is memorable for one thing over all others: aesthetics.

To sum up the plot quickly: An alien bounty hunter, Iria, and her formless AI friend Bob come to Earth in pursuit of the aforementioned overpowered fugitive. In the opening it's mentioned that they beat out several others for the contract, which gives us a tantalizing glimpse of alien bounty hunter procedure that I wish was expanded upon. In order to capture Zëiram they construct a virtual arena comprised of a slice of the town of Mikasa, digitally walled off and turned into an isolated playing field so that the bounty hunters can do their thing without inevitably turning the whole surrounding area into collateral damage. Of course, two bumbling employees of an electronics-parts distributor accidentally end up trapped in the simulation as well, with their unbelievably hip pastel work uniforms. Surprisingly, having two inept guys in the way doesn't take anything away from how cool the action is. I understand this is an unpopular opinion from reading other reviews, but the comic relief only served to enhance the rest of everything for me, personally.

Everything about this movie is heavily tied to cybernetics and speculative tech. It's very Neal Stephenson, very analog-having-a-Franz-Kafka-dream-that-it-is-digital. Technology just doesn't look like this anymore - but in this case, that's why this movie is so utterly perfect. Electronics were entering what was really the last great era for bulkiness; silhouettes were beginning to slim down and become more streamlined, to evolve into the obsession with creating something as thin as possible, often at the expense of a way to vent waste heat. But for the moment, actual physical circuitboards bigger than an ant were thriving. Everything still has to be plugged in, thick bundles of cables descend from the walls, and the film's bounty-hunter protagonist's DIY home base, while not the size of the multi-ton abominations of early computing, still takes up the better part of a whole room between its various components. How accustomed are we to seeing the high-tech protagonist of our sci-fi films dial up a hologram on her smart watch that handles anything her heart desires? It's lamentable that with the introduction of things like that, we've lost things like Zëiram, deliciously chunky slices of technological perfection where you were still in control as a user.

To continue this tangent for just another second, I really think that's the crux of why nothing feels like Zëiram does anymore: At this point in time, concepts like virtual reality were still fairly new, and the flood of sci-fi literature and film speculating about how it might integrate into our lives shows a view that in hindsight is vastly more optimistic than what we ended up getting. We see stories where we can manipulate our surroundings to enhance our own lives, where we can make art and expand ourselves into a second frontier by mastering new technology as a medium for old ideas. But what actually happened was that, as is always the case, the wrong people got ahold of it. We were taken out of our fantasies of a new world to explore, and we were instead made into a commodity. Instead of being able to mold and shape technology with the skill of an artist, we got roped into being surveilled and monetized. Zëiram is a glimpse into a possible future that never came to pass because, under capitalism, the distribution of its futuristic technology could never have been so egalitarian as it dreams it might have been.

The creature design wizardry is used mostly on the alien-looking alien, but it doesn't neglect our humanoid alien either - it's never made clear if Iria just looks like that or if she was able to choose a human body to fit in with Earthlings, but even though she stays looking humanly for the whole film, she still looks cool too. She gets utilitarian power armor and a neat cloak and culturally important hair accessories. Bob the AI is also neat, for his part: he isn't a digital watch face or spunky robot companion but instead is depicted as a strange geometric shape spinning on a CRT monitor. Maybe that's what Iria's people really look like as well? Maybe Iria's civilization is a post-singularity one, and she's just made herself flesh enough to catch Zëiram and then be done with it.

As you might be able to tell, I'm totally in love with every inch of this movie. It might be dated, but people knew what the hell they were doing in 1991. It holds up. It looks better than almost anything produced now. When the alien throws off his clothing and reveals the amalgamation that his body is, the weird, unknowable, gooey horror of him shoved into a vaguely humanoid form, it's just so good. The implication that the core of him is actually very small and the rest is just organisms he's absorbed and molded to fit his environment. So good. And it's good because this is pretty much what Keita Amemiya does - his whole filmography is made of things exactly like this one. It's a movie where you can feel that all of what you're seeing is what the filmmakers intended for you to see. I wish I could describe everything about it but it's really something you need to see for yourself. Even the soundtrack is perfect.