Metaphors from space

Alien invasion follows usual path

BEFORE WE VANISH ★ 1/2 out of 5 Cast: Ryûhei Matsuda, Hiroki Hasegawa, Masami Nagasawa Director: Kiyoshi Kurosawa Duration: 2h 10m

The term genre-bender is often applied to director Kiyoshi Kurosawa for his mix of horror and drama.

With this odd alien-invasion story, however, genre-broken might be more apt.

The movie opens with a bang, as a blood-spattered schoolgirl calmly walks away from a scene of carnage. (The film’s Japanese title is, ironically, Walking Invaders.)

Before long we learn she is one of three aliens in human form, the vanguard of an assault.

How do we know? The bodysnatching ETs are pretty open about their plan, so certain are they that humanity won’t be able to stop them. And they seem to have a point: Even when a journalist and the wife of one of the possessed humans discover the truth, they don’t resist much. “This sucks,” one complains mildly.

Kurosawa keeps things lowkey until late in the film, when gunfights and even drone strikes enter the picture, mostly looking like the cheap special effects they are. There’s a message of sorts about the resiliency of the human spirit — every alien invasion in film history can be read as a metaphor — but your own spirit may already be broken by the time you spool past the film’s two-hour mark.