Amazing.

Rating: 10/10 (20 January 2006)

Darkened golden, oily metal surfaces crusty with grim, decaying technology that has outlived its use, gloomy corridors dripping with nameless dirt: this is the nightmare into which we are released, to race the devil.
This is the most hopeless Alien world-scape. It is a perfect dystopia, a terrifying image of a future gone irreversibly wrong. Furia 161 is its own hell, and long before the advent of the monster in its decaying premises, it already harbored the horror of a "locus horrendous" where distances expand into oblivious recesses of barren bleakness. And that is exactly what transpires through this movie, a bleak atmosphere enhanced by a slow pace digested through a strong set of impressive imagery to which we add a convincing character study that deepens the ruthless onslaught of merciless despair.
The viewer is treated to a whole display of intensely disturbing scenes that have a double impact: a visual expressiveness that doubles its narrative relevance and a sub-textual message dictated through somewhat ambiguous lines. '
***spoiler*** That is the case of the autopsy done on Newt's frozen body, of which we see preciously little but that hits a nerve nevertheless: the bloodied surgical instruments clanging against the hard blue metal and Ripley's intense anguish are enough to sober the audience into a sense of profound and unrelenting grief. Or the scene in which we hear the sermon on death being but a new beginning: interspersed with the funeral of Newt and Hicks we are treated to the birth of the Alien, thus hinting to yet another possible interpretation that links this passage to the corrosive ending.
***end spoiler***
Alien3 goes back to the basics: there is only one Alien, and the means to stop it are far from being competent to the task. And our heroine is a battered, hurt and still unbelievingly strong character, bent on destroying the beast within. In a very literal way, this nihilistic installment is the concretization of all of Ripley's fears: we have seen her panic at the thought of becoming impregnated with an Alien embryo, witnessed her formidable struggle to keep innocence alive in the shape of Newt, were privy to her all abiding combat skills being honed to the extreme as she became the icon of never desisting mankind, all this wide range of emotional states have been shared with us, taking this particular character as the medium.
And Alien3 seems to raze out all of her former accomplishments, it gives the desolate impression that all of her efforts were for nothing and that nothing can be sheltered and saved from destruction. This time, the enemy is truly within, and Ripley finally becomes the transcendental figure of conquering victory as she embraces her destiny, in the way she deals with all that befalls her.
***Spoiler*** The temptation scene, in which Ripley is offered a life at the expense of letting the Alien species survive, is one of the most intense of the whole series, as is the one in which she decides to forfeit that life for the sake of something greater. It is through this act that Ripley manages to give continuity to her project of an Alien-free universe.
***End Spoiler***
There are quite a few hermeneutic subtleties that find their way to the gritty, blood smeared screen, and there are a few that most likely escaped me. The role of fire in its most symbolic form, how religious belief is brought to its shocking hollowness when put in contrast with the flesh grinding reality, the inversion and double role of maternal instinct entwined with deadly consequences, the horrifying intimacy and rape-like situation that the Alien's reproduction entails, the complete pervasion of giving birth distorted to an image of bloody slaughter, the duality of gender issues in the awful figure of the Alien, all elements combine and interact to build a strong, fierce and final chapter of the series: making all further entries nothing but flawed and completely unnecessary watered down versions of what should never be duplicated or cloned (read that as you will).
***mild spoiler*** This is proved by the simple way in which the very ending ties Alien3 to the grand original: This is Commander Ripley, last surviver of the Nostromo. Signing out.
***end spoiler***
Without a doubt, it is brilliant in its sheer violence, tactful in its emotional appeal, perfect in its thoughtful use of imagery, and altogether sublime.