In “The Annihilation of Fish,” age means a collection of scars. Many sights and sounds of one’s past may be dormant, but memories, bruises, and desires continue to ache. For actors James Earl Jones and Lynn Redgrave, this was an especially potent subject. These two performers were already in the autumn of their lives when the film was first released a quarter century ago.
Redgrave and Jones star as elderly eccentric loners, Fish and Poinsettia who are brought together by destiny, only for their respective mental illnesses to render them inseparable. Fish, a Jamaican-American who was recently discharged from a mental health hospital, literally wrestles with the demon inside of him. Poinsettia on the other hand believes she is in a relationship with the Italian composer Giacomo Puccini, who is in fact dead. The two are placed under the supervision of the eccentric widow Mrs. Muldroone and are given separate rooms in the boardinghouse he owns. In a lesser director’s hands, these three characters would be bound to become nothing more than glib elderly stereotypes in what can only be described as othered humor. But Anthony C. Winkler, the screenwriter, took a different approach.
Under the direction of Charles Burnett, the work has an emotional softness that invites uproarious laughter without inviting any contempt.
Fish on the Annihilation first showcased at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2001, yet it found it difficult to settle– its only showing ended in devastation as a negative review ripped it to shreds. Thanks to Milestone Films, Kino Lorber, and the Hobson/Lucas Family Foundation, whose 4k restoration through UCLA Film and Television Archive and The Film Foundation, the film is back in circulation, recently being shown as the closing film for the Black Harvest Film Festival in 2024, and now being distributed again in cinemas where it can finally be appreciated.
In the initial five minutes of Fish on the Annihilation, it is self explanatory that a severe injustice has been reversed. Knowing that, it is also evident that the film is a quintessential picture which encapsulates Burnett's acheivement and prominence in America.
“The Annihilation of Fish” never fails to astonish me. Just look at the first time we see Fish and how he is at a church. What surrounds him? A charismatic preacher, a well coordinated choir, and parishioners who hum along. But then, Fish suddenly and violently slams backward to the floor, knocking a woman over in the process. Did he get touched by the holy spirit? Not at all. For the last ten years after retiring from cleaning bus stations, Fish believes a demon has wanted to fight him. That notion landed him in a mental hospital. A change in the law is now releasing him; he flees from New York to Los Angeles where he moves in with Muldroone, who allows any slights made against her name, apart from forgetting the “e” at the end.
The last Mrs. Muldroone has never questioned Fish’s behavior. He has no vices and promises to spell her name accurately, so that is sufficient for her. Mrs. Muldroone supports Fish's physical activity considering that wrestling with a demon is good exercise to her. She is also equally accepting of Poinsettia. She left San Francisco after realizing that no one would be marriage officiant between herself and a ghost of Puccini. Other than believing a ghost to be her lover, Poinsettia’s worst attribute is ‘operatically’ singing off-key to the deceased opera singer - a wrinkle which kindhearted Mrs. Muldroone can mostly tolerate. Poinsettia’s second worst habit is getting plastered at the bar and falling asleep in the hallway outside Fish’s door. Fish does feel sympathy for Poinsettia and does the most kind thing of pulling her into his apartment and tucking her on his couch.
Fish is certainly aware of the negative stereotypes surrounding his generous actions. For example, when Poinsettia wakes up on his couch, she does not just wonder about the events of the previous night. She has insults that she hurls at Fish which have underlying racist sentiments. She frequently refers to Fish as a “Jamaican bastard” and takes delight in telling Mrs. Muldroone, who she assumes is just as bigoted as she is, that a Black man seems to have done something inappropriate to her. If it were not for the chemistry burnett’s film hints at, we would expect this film to easily descend into dull race reconciliations or simple hatred. Jones and Redgrave do not suffer from that. They use Burnett’s distinct perspective blended with dark comedy to cartoonify their interracial relationship. Fish, for example, says, “In Jamaica, a white woman would only be fed bread and water for a week if she kissed a black man.” He later says, “I like my women chunkier,” as an attempt to advertise his lack of interest in such women.
Both Jones and Redgrave are phenomenal. Fish is an incredibly physical character who is extremely active and intense within animals. At the time he was working with Fish, Jones was already 68 and purpled with age. While speaking or socializing, Jones possesses a certain dignity where his posture is ever so slightly stiff.
While he wrestles with his demon – Burnett and his DPs switch to a woozy demon POV shot for these scenes - he’s hulking, sweaty, and burly but not without grace. Redgrave, on the other hand, embodies a different kind of physicality. Agitated and fussy, with her hands and eyes moving as she fidgets, her lithe body seems to shimmer. (Their problem lies somewhere in between) The whiff of new energy radiating from the experience frames pull them towards each other, but their distinct kindness born from years of loneliness makes them do it hesitantly.
“While plenty,” claim Poinsettia. “Why does that matter?” “Hey, what do we have in common,” she says. “We’re elderly,” Fish says as he rolls his eyes.
Poinsettia and Fish knows and scarred with the same suffocating memory stemming from his unpleasant wife. Even Mrs. Muldroone, who waters a weed in her expansive garden daily because it reminds her of her husband, and not in a good way, still holds some baggage. Muldroone is not alone, as the rest of the household carries around the scarred memory of domestic violence. Rats. It’s telling that despite the film being set in the new millennium, the interiors of this Victorian house from floral wallpaper to mid century appliances and furniture, appears to be stuck in another time.
Each character, in their own way, is stuck at the location of their trauma and it is something that is evident. In others, especially in Mrs. Muldroone’s case, that reality isn’t so obvious. Kidder is careful to maintain that side of her character closed, but flashes of her character reveal parts as and when needed, as of a fractured piece, all the while providing subdued satirical instants towards these two gigantic personas.
The other element that strongly connects this trio is a topic revolving around mental health. While Burnett ridicules certain aspects of these delusions, he does it excellently. Actually, he does not even take these visions as delusions. Like “To Sleep With Anger,” which has a hinted demon coming from the South to greet old acquaintances from Los Angeles, to visit with friends from the Old Country, Burnett allows mysticism and paranormal phenomena to take over. In “The Annihilation of Fish” there is, of course, the demon suggestive vision that causes the camera to demonstrate some legibility of the demon existence’s. Each time Fish tosses the demon out the window unto the bushes, the shrubs also rustle. And even though Poinsettia does not, at the end, see the apparition, she too believes in its reality.
That season play with spirits is the creation of Burnett’s Southern Roots where folklore story telling is the way of life.
Perhaps that is the reason why Burnett’s films are always misunderstood: he is constantly trying to shift the southern gothic genre into urban scenarios in places like Los Angeles – placing his characters in conversation with a distinctly American Lore which ranges from Flannery O Connor to O Henry. That translation of southern tradition to northern city centers, where Southern Black people became fishes out of water- and in this case there is also the transfer of West Indian beliefs onto the American landscape is in Burnett’s ability to sincerely tell the diverse stories of the Black diaspora. This has always stood as the backbone of Burnett’s unparalleled genius.
There are also his sensibilities towards the aimless- the people whom social services and the economy have simply abandoned- which he has brought along with him from “Killer of Sheep” to this film. Fish and Poinsettia do not engage in pedestrian rivalries or battle over subplots, but neither do they lack dreams or desire, depth or understanding. They are people who perform the greatest miracle- seeing one another as they truly are, without masks. As such, ‘The Annihilation of Fish’ is not simply feeling powerless or exposed, but an astute, and even miraculous acknowledgment.
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