Alien visitors to our planet have been a constant subject on film, whether these aliens are benign and consequently misunderstood, or at the other extreme intent on subjugating and destroying our world. These narratives play upon the human need to know we’re not alone, that there’s something else ‘out there’.
THE VISIT, by Danish documentary filmmaker Michael Madsen, imagines an alien craft has landed on Earth and uses talking head interviews to explore the governmental, military and scientific response in the event of ‘first contact’. The talking heads are interspersed with footage of humans going about their daily lives in slow motion, only becoming directly exposed to the alien presence towards the end of the film.
Madsen interviews an impressive array of thirteen representatives from agencies such as NASA and the United Nations, and from national governments and the armed forces. The most interesting viewpoints come from individuals such as the eloquent NASA astrobiologist who discusses how human evolution has been a matter of the dominant species being successful – so an alien encounter would inevitably end with one species (the biologically dominant one) winning out. Another interviewee imagines the aliens as some kind of invisible presence, rather than having substance or form – what if there is no ‘thing’ for us to meet?
If we can’t create harmony on our own planet, how can we expect a harmonious relationship with interplanetary visitors?
The film doesn’t explore how we’d manage differences in terms of communication. The assumption throughout is that we’d be able to communicate with the aliens – in English, naturally. We also now live in a world where official broadcast messages are quickly overtaken by unofficial, online communication. How governments would counter that is something that remains unanswered. Some of Madsen’s interviewees discuss the problem with the ‘first contact’ response having friendly intentions, but ending in necessary containment and interrogation of the aliens. This underlines humankind’s own problems with the treatment of ‘alien’ visits from other countries or cultures, an analogy explored most recently in Neill Blomkamp’s DISTRICT 9. If we haven’t managed to create harmony on our own planet, how can we expect a harmonious relationship with unknown, interplanetary visitors?
Perhaps the most interesting aspect of Madsen’s documentary is the final part, where he imagines the alien visitors leaving – without contact and without conflict. Alien indifference hasn’t been explored before on film, due to its lack of dramatic potential. But it’s a possible outcome, which in the words of one interviewee ‘would probably mean a whole re-think of everything.’ Now that is something to think about.
THE VISIT screens on 7 September at 18.45 at the Light Cinema
httpvh://youtu.be/7A8MrCOozFo