9/10 refractions and reflections

Rating: 9/10 (15 May 2020)

Annihilation will hopefully always be one of my favourite movies. Everything about it just works for me: visuals, sound, story, themes, atmosphere.
One of my favourite aspects is the sound. There is one song in the movie that encapsulates its themes really well, and is played several times throughout. Other than that, there is no soundtrack except at the very end during Lena's confrontation with the entity. Except, the lack of soundtrack up until this point implies to me that the unreal and unnerving tones are actually coming from the entity, and Lena is hearing what we are hearing. It just works so well to sell the otherness of the entity even more.
The themes of pain and self-destruction are, while not subtly, really well incorporated into the story to the point where the literal story doesn't even really matter, and it's more about the internal journey that Lena is going through. I really like the movie's message that pain and trauma will change you irreversibly into someone new, but still you.