Preamble

Two posts in one week? Sacrebleu, as the French would say. In all seriousness, I’ve been looking forward to doing a post on 28 Years Later’s one great shot. And the imminent release of its sequel, The Bone Temple, is a good excuse as any. What’s your favourite shot from 28 Years Later? Let me know in the comments below.

One Great Shot

There’s an abundance of great shots in 28 Years Later. A simple medium shot of houses has the beauty of the mundane as Isla (Jodie Comer) wakes up and thinks she’s not on a post-apocalyptic island. There’s also a mythic grandeur to the series of shots that depict Spike’s (Alfie Williams) and Jamie’s (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) hurried return to their island home. However, the above shot of Jimmy Crystal (Jack O’Connell) resonates with me the most.

Like the film itself, it alludes to something sinister within British culture, namely, Crystal’s visual resemblance to Jimmy Savile. The infamous children’s presenter would go down in history as one of the worst predators with a large history of abuse that was only discovered after he passed away. I think that the truth of Savile was not discovered in the 28 Days Later universe, but he still carries weight as the Jimmy cult seems to carry out violent atrocious (in his name), etc. Or perhaps, they grew up with the presenter and fashioned themselves after him because he’s a beacon for innocence in their eyes.

At the same time, the shot visually tells the audience that Jimmy Crystal is the grown-up boy that we saw at the beginning of the movie. With a particular focus on the upside-down cross, the shot alludes to a wellspring of religious meaning in this universe. One hopes that future instalments will mine the depths of this set-up because a perverse religion based on Jimmy Saville is too good an idea.