“Eternals” by Chloé Zhao in the cinema: Battlefield Earth – Culture

Some movie plans are so crazy that you keep your fingers crossed for them. For example, when Chloé Zhao, the reigning Oscar winner from China and working in America, suddenly decides to make a superhero film with Marvel Studios.

Zhao’s cinema was previously far removed from the blockbuster roar of the present. It consisted of following the precarious life of the Native Americans in South Dakota and finding silent, almost documentary stories there. Or, as in “Nomadland”, to explore the poverty-stricken modern nomad life on the highways of the USA with Frances McDormand.

But as soon as one wanted to declare Zhao to be the last voice of the romantically inflated realism, which has a great tradition in America, the Marvel message burst in between. Initially with the announcement that the multi-billion dollar administrators of the comic empire want to bring another team from their superhero pool to the cinema: the “Eternals”. Into the tormented groan of the critics – who needs new superheroes at this point in film history? – the auspicious conclusion fell: Chloé Zhao will direct.

The diversity is of course well meant, but designed on the drawing board – and you can see that in the film

And so you sit back in the pre-screening and hope for surprises. There are also, but not necessarily of a positive kind. In the first few minutes, the extraterrestrial superhero collective is introduced in its entirety. Believe it or not, that’s ten characters, all of whom have magical powers and are also immortal. Seven thousand years before Christ they float down to earth in prehistoric Mesopotamia and pose in front of the astonished Mesopotamians in a kind of family constellation.

It goes too far to list all the strange role names and superpowers and the actors that go with them, including Salma Hayek, Angelina Jolie and Richard Madden. What is important is the impression of total diversity: there is the British-Asian material converter, the Pakistani-American energy ball thrower, the gay Afro-American plus-size inventor genius, the Korean-American Donnerfaust and the deaf black super-speed Amazon. And that’s only half.

It should of course look colorful and hopeful, the reflection of a future that is desired by all well-meaning people and really represents everyone. And yet, as obviously calculated and balanced as it is, it seems somehow lifeless, as if everything had been designed on the drawing board. Headbirths from a screenplay world of the well-intentioned, in which all predetermined criteria have to be met before the story can even start. Chloé Zhao cannot change this lifelessness either.

The rest of the film then follows well-known Marvel formulas: There are evil creatures called deviants who look like monsters made of rainbow-colored wickerwork. And there are the Eternals who are on earth to defeat these deviants again and again. That could be 7000 BC in Mesopotamia, in the Hanging Gardens of Babylon five thousand years later, in the Indian Gupta empire around 400 AD or in present-day London. A lot then breaks, and people of all millennia are amazed by whom they are being rescued.

At some point the question arises whether humanity as such deserves salvation at all, this topic has been driving the “Fridays for Future” faction at Marvel for a long time. The immortal Eternals have to see all the wars and atrocities in history, right up to the atomic bombing in Hiroshima, and this can lead to doubts. In the end, the answer is yes, for two reasons: Because there are now great gay couples who raise happy children and kiss in front of the camera, and because there are the “Avengers” who just don’t let it sit when they do someone wipes out half of humanity.

Immortal fighting machines can also suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder

This last point has a certain comic, because the “Avengers” and the half of humanity they saved are characters and events from the Marvel universe that were told in the previous Marvel blockbusters. As the ultimate reason why our earth has to go on, it produces a circular argument: The Marvel Universe is awesome, so it mustn’t end, so it has to keep expanding. Like all universes, it apparently only knows expansion or collapse. But in the event of a collapse (which is inevitable from a purely cosmic point of view and must therefore come at some point), all of Hollywood will be dragged into a black hole?

If you look in “Eternals” for scenes in which you can feel the special sensitivity of the director Chloé Zhao, you will unfortunately find almost nothing. Although, maybe a sequence that is really a little different. It concerns the superhero Thena, played by Angelina Jolie, who can be imagined as the ancient goddess of war Athena, only without the introductory A. Thena wields swords, battle axes and hatchets made of pure cosmic energy, which slash everything that gets in her way represents. She’s a very efficient warrior, but she’s also crazy.

In episodic seizures, she suddenly no longer knows who is friend or foe, and in her madness she almost slaughters her “Eternals” comrades, who only survive thanks to their own super and self-healing powers. The idea that such characters may also suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, that immortal fighting machines can break in the head – that feels somehow new and exciting. Somebody should make this the core of a whole story. Which would then be a film schedule that you will cross your fingers for in its madness.

Eternals, USA 2021 – Director: Chloé Zhao. Book: Zhao, Patrick Burleigh, Ryan Firpo, Kaz Firpo. Camera: Ben Davis. With Angelina Jolie, Salma Hayek, Richard Madden, Gemma Chan, Kumail Nanjiani, Lauren Ridloff, Brian Tyree Henry. Distributor: Disney, 157 minutes. Theatrical release: November 4th, 2021.