THE X FILES
US, 1998, 122 minutes, Colour.
David Duchovny, Gillian Anderson, John Neville, William B. Davis, Martin Landau, Jeffrey D. Munn, Blythe Danner, Terry O’ Quinn, Armin Mueller- Stahl, Lucas Black.
Directed by Rob Bowman.
After five series, I had still seen about ten minutes of an episode of The X Files. Should I watch one before reviewing the movie or come at the movie without any presuppositions - except that Scully and Mulder had become cult figures and that X File devotees were legion?
Despite the critics saying the movie's plot was incomprehensible without knowing the series, I quite enjoyed it and thought I followed it. However, the vibes around the cinema when characters with cigarettes appeared or David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson indulged in some verbal sparring alerted me to the fact that I was missing nuances.
There was Ms Anderson as agent Scully, dressed in sedate black, poised and upright, an 'ice maiden' according to one reviewer, looking and acting clear and definite. There was Mr Duchovny as agent Mulder dressed casually, if not sloppily, meandering around, not at all clear or definite. And all this in the context of the search for a bomb in a federal building in Dallas.
How does Scully tick? Mulder? If they could be involved in their complex investigation during the movie, trying to identify X, the Unknown, the Aliens, why couldn't I be involved in my own complex investigation during the movie?
I started to take notes, to amass some evidence to support the immediate hunches. I began to hear snippets of conversation which ran: Scully, 'This is way past the point of common sense'; Mulder, 'Something's not right'.
Chris Carter has written most of the episodes of The X Files and wrote the screenplay for the movie. He knows his characters very well and, on the evidence of the movie, writes dialogue consistent with their types. I began to hear Scully, with her medical studies background and her vocation to FBI investigation, express herself with phrases like, '... the outcome of which is...', 'of what exactly?' She spends most of the movie searching out evidence, examining it rationally and trying to draw rational conclusions about the mutating corpses she studies and the consequent coverups by government agencies.
'I don't know. I don't see any evidence.' 'That's the first question to answer if we are going to find them...', 'What do you think they are? What? What?'. When late for a Senate committee hearing, she asks precisely, 'What are my choices?'
When decisions have to be made and Mulder tells her that he needs her, she comes back quickly with 'You don't. I've held you back'. But Mulder, far more subjective than she in his criteria for decisions, tells he that her 'strict rationalism and science have kept me honest'. He tells her that she saved him from mistakes.
While Mulder is, apparently, one of the US's greatest agents and investigators, he does not come across immediately as sure and prepossessing. In fact, the first we see of him is his moseying around looking for explosives - which, in fact, he finds. 'Something's not right.'
When he tests out his theories with Scully and when confronted by Martin Landau's mad scientist, replete with outlandish (or 'out-earthish') conspiracy theories, he keeps asking questions. His intuitive investigation method is question, question, question. And his sometimes frustrating answer to Scully's exact questions is, 'Maybe'.
He is also prone to introduce his questioning with, 'If you don't mind', 'I'd like to...'
Apparently, one of the burning questions for fans of the series and one that many expected an answer to is the emotional, the sexual relationship. Not rushing into the cinema with a longing to know, I found their relationship, as they say, 'strictly professional', until... They obviously had a sparring (echoes of Tracy-Hepburn? movies) love-hate relationship. But, it gradually appeared that there was something deeper, a deeper complementarity. Several times they seemed on the verge of... but someone intervened or Scully collapsed from a bee sting containing the alien virus. (I'm sure Freudians could do something with that.) That is a bit of what the relationship is like. It teases the audience, but there is no consummation.
However, the complementarity is interesting. Before they collapse, one says to the other, 'You made me a whole person'. This is the language of Platonic complementarity. However, before the freezing and the Antarctic rescue heroics at the end of the movie, they do hug, there are tears. Scully's firmness collapses and, to come to life again, she has, literally, to melt. Mulder has to take firm stances, stick within a deadline (an antidote to be administered before 96 hours are up) and become a neo-James Bond to rescue Scully who, with her rationalism and science, has already rescued him.
1. The popularity of the television series? Long-running? The nature of its continued popularity? Themes? Questions? The cast? The extraterrestrial dimension? Mystery?
2. The American settings, the 35,000BC Texas setting? Early humans? The transfer to Texas in the 90s, the countryside, Dallas? Washington? The desert, the site? The transfer to Antarctica? The range of locations, the culmination in Tunisia? The importance of special effects, especially the explosion? The Antarctic? The musical score?
3. The title, its reference, government activity, secret files? The presumption that humanity was not able to deal with the mysteries of the universe and mysteries beyond this world?
4. The prologue, North Texas, the alien and the killing of the humans? The burying of the body, the ice?
5. The transition to the 90s, the group of boys, Stevie, the cavern, the liquid life form, his being taken away? The alien forces?
6. Dallas, the FBI headquarters, the film’s introduction to Mulder and Scully, presuming that they are familiar to their cinema audience from television? The nature of the X Files? Paranormal investigations? The agents and their being taken off the files? The issue of the bomb threat, their investigation? Their working with Michaud? The evacuation of the building – but his remaining, the actual explosion and its force, his own death, the other people killed and Michaud seeming to permit it?
7. The hearing, Washington, the discussion about responsibility? Scully and her presence at the inquiry?
8. Kurtzweil, character, age, experience, secret meetings? His background in conspiracy theories? His information about the bodies, Stevie’s body, the fact they were dead before the explosion? The extraterrestrial infection?
9. Bronschweig, his researchers, the group of conspirators, their clash with Mulder? Their going to the site, finding what had happened to the virus, its being in a human host, the hatching of the killer alien? His death, its being buried with him?
10. Mulder and Scully, the trail to the installation, the attack of the bees, the bees being infected? Scully being stung, taken away suddenly, the ambulance, Scully and her disappearance?
11. Kurtzweil, his speeches to Mulder, his death? The Well Manicured Man and his English background, his conscience, information to Mulder about the aliens, the conspiracy group on Earth? The clash between the aliens and humanity, the plan of the aliens for human beings to be enslaved, to be able to recreate the aliens? The antidote for the virus?
12. Mulder, the transfer to Antarctica, the race against time, the death of the Well Manicured Man, the car bomb?
13. Antarctica, Scully and Mulder and their escape, Scully recovering, the spaceship in the ice?
14. The aftermath, Washington, Mulder and Scully and the discussions about staying in the FBI, Strughold, the conspirators, Tunisia, the reopening of the X Files?
15. The nature of Mulder as hero, his investigations, his being informed by conspirators of crucial information? His background of his sister’s abduction by aliens, the question about his parents? The men as surrogate fathers?
16. The relationship between Mulder and Scully, unemotional, professional, working – the moments of perfection, the brief kiss?
17. The blend of the serious, the satire, crime stories, parapsychological aspects, monsters, aliens, government conspiracies?
