The Colony (2021) picks at the scab of imperialism inherent in the death-cult we call capitalism, a cult happy to strip the planet to destruction, and then just walk way.
In a distant future, the elites of the world flee the collapse of Earth’s ecosystem, escaping to a future on the distant planet Kepler 209.
In an ironic twist of fate, infertility threatens the end of the nascent colony, so the Keplans send a research mission back to Earth hoping to confirm signs of a recovering planet.
A decade later, a second mission arrives to discover a tribe, presumably descendants of the poor abandoned by the elites, surviving in the foggy tidal waters of some rocky outcrop.
As the only surviving member of this second mission explores this perfectly realised dystopia, it slowly becomes apparent the first mission landed like some intergalactic Christopher Columbus, claiming dominion over the recovering planet, intent on taming the tribe in their image.
It’s not a perfect film but the production values are solid, and the Keplan invaders are offered some level of redemption, albeit with a “saviour complex” framing.
