’28 Years Later’ changed how I view the idea of memento mori
Whenever I hear the phrase “memento mori,” my mind always jumped to American Psycho. In the musical, Patrick Bateman says “Even if this story is overwrought and gory, it’s not a fable, it’s not an allegory. No cautionary tale, no memento mori or a vague perhaps.”
The Latin phrase translates roughly to “remember you must die” or “remember your death.” So in the song “This Is Not an Exit” from American Psycho, the meaning of memento mori is dark. It means that there is no death or you will not remember your death or the deaths you’ve found here. That was how I always viewed the Latin phrase. It is tied further into the world of American Psycho through ties to Dante Alighieri with the writing of “ABANDON ALL HOPE YE WHO ENTER HERE” on the wall.
My point being that I did not have a happy connection to the phrase. It dark and frightening and twisted. And then 28 Years Later changed that. Dr. Ian Kelson (Ralph Fiennes) uses “memento mori” to honor the dead.
Kelson is a lone wolf, living on the main land away from Holy Island where Spike (Alfie Williams) lives with his family. But when Spike learns that Kelson was once a doctor, he tries to take is mother Isla (Jodie Comer) there to find her the health care that she needs. What Spike learns is that this man who was seen as other or “off” is one of the few men leading with compassion in the world.
Kelson teaches Spike that we must honor the dead, including the infected, because they were humans with souls and lives. His skull tower that seemed horrifying in the trailer is beautiful and an emotional look at what “memento mori” can really mean.
Something so terrifying yet so calming
His take on the Latin phrase is, decidedly, different than Patrick Bateman’s. He is using it to honor the dead. When I spoke with both Alex Garland and Danny Boyle, I couldn’t stop asking about the sequence with Kelson because I was truly so moved by the lessons that Fiennes’ character was teaching a young Spike.
Having all of this symbolized by the skulls was such a change in tone from what many of us assumed would happen and I asked Boyle about making that something calming and peaceful instead of terrifying, as it could have been. “A lot of that of that is obviously the actors, they respond to the script. You cast the right actors, you get that,” Boyle said. He went on to talk about how Kelson’s monument works because of Kelson as a character.
“Kelson is a visionary, but his vision is of a monument. And monuments are interesting how they move us, really. In the real world, they’re often a political necessity. You have to honor the dead, but they become something much greater than that. Over time, I think they become something that connects us all. And I think, he doesn’t state it as such, but it is about that. It is about the infected and the non-infected alike. That there’s no difference really in a way. “
You can see our full conversation here:
28 Years Later is one of the best movies of the year, so far, and I will be thinking about Kelson’s monument for quite a long while.
(featured image: Sony Pictures)
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