Analysis: Mars Attacks

To me, the difference between what we call "low art" and "high art" is that the latter expresses an individual and the former a collective consciousness. Tim Burton's "Mars Attacks", for example, is a pure expression of its zeitgeist. The theme of the 90s was the unknown, and the Martians in the film symbolize the way people react towards the unknown. Each character reacts differently, depending on which they live or die, but the one thing that those that die have in common is egocentrism, as if the film is a wish-fulfillment for their destruction.

Almost every character in the film thinks only about what the coming of the Martians means for themselves, subjecting the unknown to the known and thereby offending it. It's hard to think about the unknown in any other way because the fact that it's unknown is all we have to think about: but most characters think they know what to do with the unknown (the Martians) as soon as they know it is there, and never change their mind even as they see their death coming for them. Those that survive are those that express no emotion about the Martians when they first see them.

The film is surrealist in that it is neither comedy nor tragedy. Surrealism often tries to blur the distinction between the two because it wants to transcend the boundaries of our reality, and whether we see something as comical or tragical, painful or pleasurable, forms its basis, as it's on this that we decide how to behave towards it.

Our own confusion as to what to make of the film is much like that of the characters as to what to make of the Martians: the film invades our mind the way the Martians invades the Earth in the film. To add to this ambiguity, it tries to confuse our sexuality, perhaps because it's already the most ambiguous aspect of our existence, able to cause suffering and happiness equally. (It's probably because I found out from the film what sexuality is as a child that I became so repressed.)

The Martians' face has no flesh, making it look like a death's head, with only eyes and brains just to add to our sense of mortality. The characters' initial optimism about the Martians is similar to that which our society had towards death until the Death of God, symbolized by the Martians' shooting the dove (the Holy Spirit). Hence, one religious character initially sees the Martians (death) as the solution to everything (heaven). The dove is released at a time of great suspense to suppress it with a symbol of perfection, thereby violating the unknown with arbitrary values of good and evil. . At the news of the Martians, the first question from a journalist is "do they have two sexes?" in an attempt to put the unknown into a duality, much like heaven and hell, or tragedy and comedy. In Las Vegas, a fallen sign says "Stardust: Enter the Night", another existential reference to death.

Some characters think the Martians misunderstand them, but their telepathy makes this impossible, making their actions a reflection of humans' reaction to them: the way the unknown unfolds to us is a reflection of our attitude towards it. By subjecting the unknown to the known, the humans are actually the ones invading the unknown, and it retaliates. Because of their telepathy, they have no need for symbols, which are offensive to them, hence they wreak havoc at any symbol or symbolic moment (treaties, newscasts, monuments, meetings).

This is why they're afraid of lipstick, of pets (symbols of the affection people won't give each other) and why they crave both to be nude and to see humans nude (stripped of symbols).

Every symbol is also a symbol of the known, which humans look at merely to look away from the unknown. This is why Islam forbids the portrayal of Allah, which may be why the film shows a peaceful Mecca in a montage of violence. However, when one character says to another he's become a muslim, the only reaction the other gives is "you gave up pork", again focusing only on what's known for sure. Later, this character survives a confrontation with dozens of Martians because he takes of his symbolic armor and says “No weapon, no clown outfit, just me" and takes a leap of faith, at which the Martians once more reflect the human they're faced with by dropping their own weapons: the way the unknown unfolds to us is a reflection of our attitude towards it.

The scientist in the film believes that development equals civilization, representing the modernist paradigm inherited from the Christian duality of the omnipotent god and impotent devil. But the translation isn't perfect because ambiguity is lost in translation. Even as the translation is saying “the fundamental truth is the self-determination of the cosmos,” however, the president is only concerned with asking to make sure "how many centuries" it said earlier, being fixated on numbers because they're the only thing that's not ambiguous: like symbols, the numbers give him something else to focus on, no matter what. When the Martians see the humans try to control the universe with symbols (a dove magically puts the universe into peace mode), they decide that humans don't respect the self-determination of the universe which they see as the fundamental truth. The translation ends with "Dark is the Swede that mows like a harvest," which may be a reference to The Seventh Seal, a Swedish film about the Grim Reaper, and a hint that if they did not accept their fundamental truth, they would die. Since they consider it so important, the "donut sign" must be a symbol of the universe's self-containedness (its appellation being another satire of human egocentrism).

The president is killed by a fake hand, mocking his desire for a symbol of peace and implying that such illusion of control kills. Just before this happens, the Martians also mock the humans by throwing a snowball into the room as if it were a weapon, implying the destructivity of symbols.

It all turns around when one character, who till then seemed like the least important because of his lack of egocentrism, cares for someone other than himself (his grandmother) so that for the first time we have a character we actually really don't want to die. (This is also partly why the writer allowed the muslim to survive later, as he took on those Martians to save others.)

In the very moment he saves his grandmother, the Martians die when suddenly exposed to a song, the "Indian Love Call", which is so fitting in a surreal Tim Burton-style film because it starts out without lyrics and puts pure expression in sound, making it sound very transcendental: once we transcend ourselves, the unknown no longer seems monstrous. More importantly, the song softens the anger of the screenwriter at the artificiality of society. Then at the film's conclusion, after all its satire it seems for a moment like it's about to end on a patriotic note with the “Star-Spangled Banner” until it shows grandma covering her ears: in its pomposity, the song is antipodal to the song that saved the Earth.

Some egocentrism-themed easter eggs:

— Even when the UFO lands, the camera stays on the newscaster. Before, one character said to her dog, “All of these people here… to see you" and a newscaster said about why so many people were coming “Or was it simply to say, ‘I was here’?”

— A dog barks at an alien on the TV from the very corner that the alien is looking at, reminding us of our own egocentric feelings as a child that we could be watched from the TV.

— At the landing, all people in the first row are New Age hippies: their "law of attraction" is as egocentric a model of the universe as there ever was.

— A soldier thinks he can surrender in the name of the entire USA by picking up a flag (another symbol).

— At a military funeral, everyone starts at all three salutary gunshots as if they feel fired at personally.

— One character who's flirting with a Martian in disguise is oblivious despite the fact that all his attention is focused on her, reflecting how for many people, sexuality is more about themselves than about the other person.