28 Years Later: The Bone Temple is a more conventional but still daring look into the now infamous world of the infected. A toned-down, slow-paced exploration of humanity, what is left of it, can it be gained back, and how.
Written by Kenza Bouhnass Parra
The second part of the third film of the Years trilogy was recently released in cinemas. 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple furthers the exploration of characters introduced in 28 Years Later (2002), making a more prominent examination of how people, the single being, and newly formed groups cope with the helplessness of a forever changed world where humanity is stripped from individuals.
After his encounter with Dr. Kelson (Ralph Fiennes) and the loss of his mother in the previous chapter, Spike (Alfie Williams) is forced to join Jimmy Crystal’s (Jack O’Connell) satanic clan, whose main purpose is to find survivors amongst the infected to offer a sacrifice to who they call Old Nick. While Dr. Kelson experiments on Samson (Chi Lewis-Parry), an infected become Alpha, with whom he manages to form a connection, to try to find the much- coveted cure to the virus.
Compelled to continue from where we left the characters off at the end of Danny Boyle’s prequel, director Nia DaCosta examines in this new volume the extremist roads that survivors’ ideologies take, the radicalisation through violence that isolation fosters, or through the search for a human connection, no matter what the cost is. The Bone Temple finds no choice but to suffer from comparisons to its prequel, even though DaCosta offers a remarkable new entry into this pre-established world. This chapter chooses the slow the cadence down, sits into the discomfort of witnessing on one side the desolation caused by the trauma of the epidemic—subverting religious imagery and symbolism and never facing away from toe- curling abominations done through the prism of belief, of needing a spiritual explanation where science has failed—and on the other side the desolation of coming to terms with someone’s own mortality in a world where survival has become the default, of time moving forward when the pass years have felt like decades, of believing still in compassion and human connection while surrounded by zombies.
With a chapter more inclined toward introspection rather than a stately quest, The Bone Temple defies the expected rhythm for a more slow-paced soul-searching piece, reflected in Hildur Guðnadóttir’s stunning score, favouring more classical yet haunting compositions, instead of the Young Father’s progressive hip hop sound, bringing an emotional depth to the new chapter of the trilogy that perfectly completes the tone. This more toned-down score leaves room for record-scratching cathartic needle drops.
Sean Bobbit’s photography also follows the path of the more toned-down choice, replacing heightened saturations and iPhone cameras with natural lighting and more composed shots of great symmetry and balance. While the choice for DaCosta to form an idiosyncratic project, distancing herself from Boyle’s more experimental style, is more than warranted, I did find myself aching for responding visuals and striking callbacks that would create cohesion within the 28 Years Later trilogy. The film does hold some remarkably beautiful sequences, especially night-time ones, but it overall remains disappointingly more standard in that aspect.
It is a film that also, despite Jack O’Connell’s incredible performance, suffers in pacing, notably regarding the cult’s journey. The emotional heart can be found in Dr. Kelson and Samson’s evolving relationship, leaving the Jimmy cult the task of bringing the horrors of extremism to the fore, in very taxing and demanding scenes, where monstrosity is constantly pushed to the point where it transforms itself into torturous shock value rather than an uncompromised telling of terror. When the path is composed mostly of impressive but gruesome demonstrations of physical power, it becomes one I no longer wish to walk.
28 Years Later: The Bone Temple is a more conventional but still daring look into the now infamous world of the infected. A toned-down, slow-paced exploration of humanity, what is left of it, can it be gained back, and how? Nia DaCosta appropriates for herself the sequel to the Years trilogy, a non-easy task, having to further cement the paths of the characters while introducing new stakes. And while some choices appear as more standard than what has been seen in its prequel, the film still manages to catch the audience’s heart and hold it captive through the waiting for the final chapter.
28 Years Later: The Bone Temple is now playing in theatres
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