Æon Flux (2005) | Sci-Fi Saturdays

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The future is in flux. Æon Flux!

Æon Flux is a dystopian thriller that falls short on almost every level. The film, arguably more about style over substance, provides little in the way of new ideas for science-fiction. Yet still manages to combine its elements into a unique and mostly unforgettable film.

First Impressions

In a world described as the perfect society, in the last city on Earth, something is amiss. A group of rebels, who all appear to be women, reject the totalitarian regime and fight for those that have been kidnapped and silenced by the government. Charlize Theron is a trained assassin who has amazing moves and technology that she will use to assassinate a man named Goodchild. Based on the MTV animated series of the same name, Æon Flux is the next film on Sci-Fi Saturdays!

Presented below is the trailer for the film.

The Fiction of The Film

It is the year 2415. Only 5 million survivors remain from a 21st Century global plague. They live in the walled city of Bregna, and are ruled by Trevor Goodchild (Marton Csokas). The Goodchild dynasty stretches back 400 years to a scientist that developed a cure to the industrial disease. A group of Rebels, known as The Monicans, have arisen to take down the oppressive regime in which individuals disappear, vanished by the government. Æon Flux (Charlize Theron), a Monican assassin, has been tasked by the Handler (Fances McDormand) to cripple the regime’s surveillance and assassinate Goodchild.

During Æon’s preparation for the mission, her sister, Una (Amelia Warner), is killed by an unknown assailant. Rumors circulate that she was a Moncian assassin. Angered at the unjust killing of her sister, Æon has nothing left for herself but the mission. She teams with Sithandra (Sophie Okonedo), another Monican who has undergone surgery to replace her feet with hands, and infiltrate the Goodchild compound. When Æon approaches Trevor to shoot him, he calls her “Katherine,” and she is unable to proceed. Æon is taken prisoner but manages to escape.

One of Goodchild’s advisor’s on the Council, his brother Oren (Tommy Lee Miller), doesn’t understand why Trevor is still alive. He personally leaked information to the Monicans about when and where Trevor would be vulnerable. Æon, confused by what has occurred, meets with Trevor again. She has some strange flashes of imagery, like she knows Trevor. The two kiss and make love. Afterwards Æon discovers a secret library and laboratory of Goodchild’s. She is attacked by Trevor’s bodyguard Freya (Caroline Chikezie), but manages one again to escape.

Oren brings Trevor’s dalliances to the Council and is instilled as Chairman in his place. Orders go out to security forces to detain Trevor and Æon. The Monicans have also put out an order to stop Æon. Her investigation leads her to a dirigible that floats over the city called The Relical. Inside are the records of Goodchild’s experiments, including the DNA for the entire population. According to computer logs Una Flux was a subject of group 7B, all of whom have been killed recently. But her DNA has been “reassigned” to a new child. Æon meets again with Trevor for answers and he explains everything.

The vaccine developed 400 years ago to cure the plague left everyone sterile. The original Trevor and Oren Goodchild developed a cloning procedure and have been replicating people over the past four centuries while looking for a cure to the sterility. Group 7B was a number of women that had become fertile on their own. Oren, having found out about this, had them all killed in order to maintain the status quo; knowing he would not continue to be cloned if there were viable new people in the society.

Oren had attempted to have Æon’s DNA destroyed (as she was Tervor’s original wife, Katherine), knowing that he could be controlled better without the woman he loved. Trevor running into Æon changed that plan. Trevor and Æon return to the compound in order to convince Oren he is wrong. A group of Monican assassins led by Sithandra are also there. A shootout occurs where Oren and Sithandra are killed. Æon returns to The Relical, where the Keeper (Pete Postlethwaite) informs her he had her DNA preserved, answering the question of her survival. She destroys the Relical, and all the DNA, forcing the society forward without a safety net. To live again with hope.

“We’re meant to die – that’s what makes anything about us matter.” – Æon Flux

History in the Making

Æon Flux is certainly a unique science-fiction film. Like Serenity from last week, this too is an adaptation of a television show. More accurately, an animated television show that started off as short subject films on MTV. The series began as a 2-minute segment on the Liquid Television program in 1991, before transitioning to a 5-minute segment in the second season. Finally, Æon Flux became its own show in 1995 with ten 30-minute episodes. Unlike Serenity, the film was a live-action interpretation of the subject matter from the shows. It used the two main characters from the show, and continued some of the themes from the series, rather than being a direct adaptation or continuation of the storyline.

Directed by Karyn Kusama, who had made a splash with her first film Girlfight (featuring Michelle Rodriguez in her first film role), Æon Flux did not garner her the accolades she had expected. Like many high profile franchise properties, and unlike the more independent films she made since, the attention paid by the studio tended to be detailed, and oftentimes meddlesome. Reportedly she was fired, her film recut to a very short 71-minute version, and–when that film tested poorly–was asked to come back to save the mess that was made by the editing. She was not allowed to put back any of the 30 minutes that was cut from her original version, and the resulting film is presumably what exists now. While the final film may not reflect Kusama’s intent, it exists as a 92-minute example of style over substance.

Genre-fication

By the early 21st Century, the science-fiction genre as presented in films and television was changing. Now that special effects were at a place to be able to create almost any type of world or object that creators could imagine, the stories that were being dreamed up were becoming more complex and including elements that had not been attempted before–at least in live action. Æon Flux continued the popularity of dystopian societies, mixing in elements of biopunk (an offshoot of the cyberpunk style), and layers of fetishism–which was made popular through The Matrix films. Much of these stylistic underpinnings also came from the animated show that inspired the film. These included the costume design, the level of action or specific character poses, and the general look of the future. The futuristic walled city of Bregna could be classified as a post-modern style that leans heavily on brutalism–denoted by the heavy concrete and angular shapes that make up the architecture, evoking other futuristic dystopias like Brazil or even Alphaville.

But even the best set or costume design does not make a film. The structure of Æon Flux definitely falls short of engaging, as it relies heavily on the design of the film being reminiscent of the cartoon. And for those unfamiliar with that show, it uses the overt usage of action as an attempt to fit in with similar modern sci-fi/action films. The action moments are really where the film breaks down. Either the editor did not know how to cut an action sequence, or not enough footage was filmed during principle photography.  Unlike the fluidity of The Matrix and its action sequences, a film that Æon Flux seems eager to copy, the fight sequences are choppy and made up of many quick close-up shots that do not provide a frame of reference for the action. All the audience can tell is that the characters are doing a lot of acrobatics, but not necessarily what is going on. That may be part of a comic book (or cartoony) style that was intended. The film starts with a shot that informs audiences how superhuman the main character of Æon Flux actually is when she catches a fly (and holds it) with her eyelashes. A portent that defines the style of unreality to come.

Societal Commentary

And while the world of Æon Flux looks futuristic, most of the characters’ problems are ones that people deal with today. Or at least ones that don’t feel too far out of reach for a sci-fi film. The first theme of the film is about adaptation. The backstory of the film is about a plague that wiped out 99% of humanity in 2011, leaving 5 million people left alive. How does humanity survive that? In some films, like The Road Warrior,  the world becomes an apocalyptic wasteland. In others, humanity might seek repopulation off planet. Æon Flux has the remaining population create a single city which the scientists keep populated via cloning. But this is secret cloning. Even more secret than the cloning in The Island! No one in the society realizes that they have been born again and again. The film also postulates that there is a psychic-stress being put on the denizens after being reincarnated so many times. Somehow humanity survives and adapts to meet the new challenge. The end of the film has the population forced into a new form of adaptation as the Relical, full of DNA patterns, is destroyed, forcing the few women who can now give birth to push the story forward. Personally, forcing this change to the society based on the love between a Æon and Trevor is ridiculous. Sure, some women have adapted to be able to breed again–but they’ve all been killed off. Who knows how many more exist, or how long it will take to make the rest of the childbearing women fertile.

The other theme of the film takes the opposite tact from adaptation, which is the comfort of familiar patterns. This is when people fall into habits, both good and bad, that provide predictable outcomes. That familiarity is a comfort, even if it leads to detriment. This is where Oren comes into the picture. He has been created and re-created for 400 years. He and his brother were the only ones that knew they were clones of the original version, with each being trained by their predecessor to carry on the search for a cure to the sterility. Except that along the timeline, Oren became comfortable being in power. By the time of the film, he wants more than to be on the Council. He wants to be in charge. He prefers the brute force of the totalitarian regime, not even considering the leniency that others on the council preach. He frames his own brother with an assassination attempt, and when that doesn’t work, ousts him based upon his dalliances with the enemy. Oren’s killing of the women in Group 7B was counter to the mandate of his predecessors. Yet he knew that if the cure for the sterility was found, this would be the end of his immortality. He had found comfort in the sameness, and was drawn to the power that his position held. The film attempts to show that hope and compassion are stronger than the tools of fear and oppression.

The Science in The Fiction

Æon Flux was a surprise cloning film, which was part of the surprise. As mentioned in the article on The Island, the popularity of including cloning in a film over the last decade had skyrocketed, due to both the popularity of Jurassic Park, but also real-world advancements (and interest) in the science of cloning. But that was a small slice of the technology included in the film. One of the more memorable elements is probably the “hands for feet” that Sithandra sports. When asked how she likes them, Sithandra performs a number of tricks, such as picking some weapons placed on a small mat (why are they there?) before responding, “useful.” This is one of several bioengineered technologies depicted. There’s also the flora outside the Goodchild compound. Trees with seed pods that fire organic darts and grass that includes metal razor-spikes are some of the dangers faced. The society has also perfected some kind of neuro-communicator. Æon swallows a pill that allows her to communicate in some astral state with The Handler, the only time that Frances McDormand is seen. This communication is shown to be in a different plane of existence by having Æon wear diaphanous veils and lighting the set in a dreamlike quality, while creating a light-halo behind The Handler. Æon is apparently also able to use different pressure points on her body to communicate with Sithandra, and other Monicans, via this dreamlike location.

Æon also has some other body modifications, like a map that causes an inflammatory reaction on her forearm, raising the skin to show her the proper path to take in a maze-like compound. She has an audio device, probably similar to a cell phone implanted in her left ear. She gets a call which causes a red light to flash within her ear. Not extremely practical, except to alert others nearby that you are getting a call. The final visible modification that is shown, outside Æon’s enhanced speed, strength, and dexterity, is a modified left eye. She is able to roll a new eyeball into place by tilting her head back and shaking her head slightly. This new eye has magnification properties and allows her to view micro-particles floating in her water. Her modifications are less overt than Sithandra’s feet-hands, but just as practical. Yet another example of adaptation in the film.

The Final Frontier

Director Karyn Kusama seems unhappy with this finished film, and has chosen to make some smaller, more independent films as follow-ups, all of which were highly acclaimed. Her next film was Jennifer’s Body, a horror film written by Diablo Cody. It continued the feminist themes that are present in both Girlfight and to a lesser extent Æon Flux. She also directed the horror film The Invitation and the crime-thriller Destroyer. Charlize Theron was just hitting her popularity in the early 2000s when this film was released. She had appeared in over 20 films prior to this one, having made herself known in a variety of genre films including Mighty Joe Young, The Legend of Bagger Vance, and Reindeer Games as examples. Her biggest splash was in 2003 where she starred in the popular heist remake The Italian Job and earned an Oscar for her work on Monster. She would return to the sci-fi genre numerous times in Hancock, Prometheus, and her amazing work as Furiosa in Mad Max: Fury Road.

Æon Flux has a lot of problems, perhaps the biggest being its inability to engage the audience. In a modern context, there’s not much that hasn’t been seen here before, but even in 2005 it seems like the filmmakers were trying to throw in every cool futuristic concept they could. The film ends up raising a lot of questions about the way their society works. Is the Handler really a human somewhere, or perhaps a computer program/hologram providing the Monicans instruction? Una dies early in the film, and when Æon finds the details in The Relical, her DNA has already been assigned to a new baby. Has it really been nine months in between these events? It certainly doesn’t seem like it–and it’s not like the Keeper knew she was going to be killed and started the process early. Why do clones have psychic flashbacks to memories from their previous incarnations? Even for fans of sci-fi action/adventure, Æon Flux falls short of a recommendation, breaking down at even the slightest examination.

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