Katie Rife 
Alex Garland on Attack on Titan, Paganism, and More of the Influences on Men
Alex Garland’s latest feature, Men, is a sinister descent into a chthonic nightmare world disguised as a posh English country estate — where ancient forces engage in violent cycles of death and rebirth. The film is laden with resonant symbolism but evades simple interpretation; put plainly, it’s a real mindfuck. Garland isn’t inclined to dig too deeply into what it all means — for his benefit or that of his audience. “In my mind, I’ve got my own sets of preoccupations, and I don’t particularly bother to explain them or go through them too much,” he says.
While Garland believes that the audience’s interpretation of Men is more important than his own, he has laid out a few bread crumbs for viewers curious about the film’s influences. Some are fairly literal: Hajime Isayama’s hit anime, Attack on Titan, for example. Or the sad-sack ’90s rom-coms of screenwriter Richard Curtis. Others are more abstract — the “impossibility of objective truth” kind of abstract. In the dark woods where these strange and terrifying men dwell, dreams are reality, catharsis is a lie, and the old gods demand sacrifice. Below, Garland describes some of the images and influences that shaped Men.
Attack on Titan
Photo: Pictures From History/Universal Images Group via Getty Images
I wanted to give the film a sense of something that’s both fantastically old and fantastically present. It would be incredibly disingenuous to propose that the subject matter in this film is a modern phenomenon. I’d say it’s not about original sin so much as these are the flickering touchstones in people’s minds when they think about the subject.
I know that if I put that imagery in there, some people will think this is a Genesis allegory. But if the social-media phenomenon has taught us anything, it’s not to bother trying to make everyone agree; you’re wasting your time. In a funny way, it’s pushed me further toward — I’m just going to say this the way I think is the right way to say it.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
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