This movie is so good!!!! Although it takes multiple times watching it and many youtube breakdown videos to even begin to understand, it is worth it to try and understand this masterpiece of a film to the best of our ability. This film is beautifully written, produced and directed, plus the acting, cinematography and score make the whole film feel truly eerie. Before we get into the analysis of the score, I feel it's necessary to provide you with a bit of context...
A scene towards the beginning of the film shows a meteor shooting in from outer space and hitting a lighthouse. An important detail in this scene is the trail of smoke that the meteor leaves seems to be slowing a slight rainbow color. The next shot is a close up of an indescribable substance, possibly alien, probably growing and forming into a replica of something around it. From the point of collision, we see the birth of the Shimmer and its beginning expansion. The “Shimmer” is a holographic sort of wall, expanding slowly but surely towards civilization, engulfing everything it touches. The song playing over this scene is a soft, calming guitar track called “What Do You Know?”. It sounds similar to the song “Helplessly Hoping” which is also featured in this film. The lyrics of this song follow the movie quite well, mentioning two people coming together as a third, a lost woman, and a man missing a “hello”. The Annihilation theme, however, is an extremely unnerving track that plays over Lena’s first true encounter with the previously mentioned alien form in the lighthouse. A comment on the track “When I first saw the scene I didn’t even realize it was a score, I thought the creature itself was producing this noise.” I believe this was what the filmmakers wanted viewers to feel when listening/ watching this movie, and obviously it worked.
We then meet Lena (Natalie Portman), who is sitting in a room with a few other people in hazmat suits who are keeping their distance as they interrogate her. Even without knowing anything about her character, you can tell that something is off about her. She seems off, often answering simple questions with “I don’t know” and giving off an anxious vibe about her, all while speaking in a calm, almost understanding tone; the words she says do not match up with her demeanor or the tone of her voice. During her interrogation, a scientist called Lomax, played by Benedict Wong, asks Lena what the alien form she encountered in a lighthouse wanted. “I don't think it wanted anything”, she replies. “It attacked you,” he says. “It mirrored me- I attacked it”. After this statement, Lena reaches for a water glass on the table beside her. This is when we first see that she has a tattoo. This reminds the viewer of what a fellow scientist said to Lena while in Area X: “The shimmer is a prism, but it refracts everything. Not just light and radio waves… plant DNA, animal DNA, all DNA.” The tattoo shown on Lena’s arm appeared on a corpse the scientists encountered in Area X as well as on another scientist, Anya, who was part of Lena’s team. When Lena sets the water glass back down, the water does the opposite of how it’s supposed to behave in glass- instead of separating it comes together, just as the environment within the Shimmer has morphed together in ways no one expected. Lorax is not satisfied with Lena’s answer, and insists “It was mutating our environment, it was destroying everything”, to which she replies “It wasn't destroying, it was changing. It was making something new.” “Making what?” he asks. “I dont know.” she finally says. There is no music over this scene. The room is completely silent aside from Lorax and Lena’s dialogue, and the sound of the glass cup being lifted and set back down on a metal tray. This gives the scene a very tense feeling and forces you to pay extreme attention to the details in the scene.
This film’s score is incredibly well done and makes the thrilling movie feel more real than I’m comfortable with. The soundtrack combined with the other fantastic elements of this film truly make it a beautiful movie.