Fafnir (Dec 2019)
Vanishing Glaciers, the Becoming-Unextinct of Microorganisms, and Fathering a More-Than-Human World: Climate Change Horror in the Alps
Abstract
Marketed as Austria’s response to The Thing (1982), the horrorscience fiction hybrid Blutgletscher (2013) depicts the re-emergence of seemingly extinct (or not known to have existed) microorganisms from thawing permafrost, which combine and recombine the genetic information of any lifeform they contact. As this article demonstrates, the Austrian film thus focuses on one of climate change’s many unintended effects, the longer-term consequences of which are unpredictable. The film’s transnational incorporation of The Thing adds to the effect, as it not only exposes the spatial and temporal flows in a globalised world but also scales up the viewer’s imagination in an attempt to represent humanity’s present and future in a climate-changed world. Indeed, this article suggests that Blutgletscher’s ending, in which the protagonist decides to raise a humanoid creature produced by the interaction between the microorganism and other lifeforms, imagines the end of humankind as it is known. Notably, this seemingly dark outlook conveys a cautious optimism about the prospect of a post-human future: life on Earth will continue; and some species carrying Homo sapiens’s genetic imprint will emerge from the ashes of human civilisation.
