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Reviewed by:
  • Immortal (Ad Vitam)
  • William Brown (bio)
Immortal (Ad Vitam) (Enki Bilal France 2004). Original title: Immortel (ad vitam). Optimum Releasing. PAL Region 2. 16:9 Anamorphic. £15.99.

O wine can clothe in luxuryThe ale-house foul and low,And build a golden porticoWith its red alchemy…Like cloudy sunset in the evening glow.

And opium dreams can roam and rovePast that which has no bourneCan plumb eternity, and mournThe emptiness of loveAnd satiate the soul with joys forlorn.4 [End Page 171]

The above lines are the first two stanzas of Baudelaire's poem, 'The Poison', the next and final two stanzas of which are quoted by Jill (Linda Hardy) and Nikopol (Thomas Kretschmann) in the closing moments of Immortal (Ad Vitam), Enki Bilal's loose adaptation of his own the Nikopol trilogy (1980–1992) graphic novel.

The lines recited by Bilal's actors suggest how the human gaze and human saliva are a far greater 'poison' than the wine and opium described above. For, says Baudelaire, the eyes and mouth cause greater pain to those who drink from them, bringing us closer to death. Such, the poem suggests, is the bitter taste of human love, far superior to the transforming power of the grape and the poppy seed.

Given Baudelaire's affirmation of human interaction as more powerful than wine or opium, one feels tempted to reread 'The Poison' within the context of early twenty-first century cinema and to say that digital imagery has the same transforming and hallucinatory power as these drugs. Like wine, digital technology can 'clothe in luxury' a filthy and graffiti-strewn Paris (Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain (Amelie; Jeunet France/Germany 2001)); it can create a virtual 'portico' out of nothing (the virtual Mordor sets from Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings films (US/New Zealand/Germany 2001–2003)); it can show us the depths of 'boundless' space (the zoom out from Earth and into deep space in Robert Zemeckis' Contact (US 1997)); it can change our perception of time (changing speeds of movement within the same shot, as in Timur Bekmambetov's Nochnoy dozor (Night Watch; Russia 2004)), in which we see an accelerated zoom backwards from a boat deck, which then slows to 'normal' film speed (what once we would have called '24 frames a second'); and, in the digital visual culture of gaming, it can help us to indulge our deepest and darkest desires, to 'satiate the soul' (Grand Theft Auto (1997)). However, in spite of the wonder and amazement that digital technology can bring to cinema and other visual media, one often feels, like Baudelaire, that a human presence is necessary in order to render the hallucination truly touching.

Given this implication in Baudelaire's poem, it is ironic that Bilal should have his characters recite 'The Poison'. The latest of several movies to be shot using only virtual sets, Immortal similarly seems to lack the human touch. Claiming to be the first film to feature not just virtual sets but also virtual human (and non-human) characters interacting with 'real' (but digitally modified) human characters/actors, Bilal's third feature (after Bunker Palace Hotel (France 1989) and Tykho Moon (France/Germany/UK 1996)) is one of an increasing body of French films that exploit the latest in digital effects technology in order to create their fictional worlds (for more on this, see Austin 2004). The irony lies in the [End Page 172] fact, however, that in spite of the film's final ode to painful human experience, humanity seems a far remove from Immortal's world – and the human spectator can on occasion feel alienated (or that the film is weak) as a result of the digital overload.

This sense of alienation is all the more ironic because the film, which is set in New York in 2095, is all about becoming human. Although rather risibly introduced with the line 'it's a naked guy with a bird's head', the ancient Egyptian Sun God Horus is a body invader who has a week to find a suitable host body and a mate with whom to...

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