Eden Log is a 2007 science fiction film, directed by Franck Vestiel.
It is a classic Ontological Mystery. A man wakes up in the middle of a dark cave. He doesn't who he is, or how he got there. After scrambling around in the dark, he comes upon damaged and abandoned pieces of technology, telling of a paradise named "Eden Log". As he continues to explore his environment, he finds that it is composed of multiple levels, and that there are also mutated humans roaming around. From there he continues to try to reach the surface, find out what is going on, and find a way out.
This film provides examples of:
- And Then John Was a Zombie: Subverted. Several times the man is shown to lose his mental control and starts behaving like one of the feral mutants, but he never fully undergoes the transition.
- Apocalyptic Log: Several. Specifically the Japanese technician, the architect, and Tolbiac.
- Botanical Abomination: The gargantuan tree that powers the city. Supposedly its sap is a superfuel, but actually it turns the migrant workers harvesting it into savage mutants, who are then used as the real power source.
- Cutting Back to Reality: The man perceives the rape attempt as if he is making love with the woman. We are shown what is happening from his warped perspective, interspersed with shots of him violently attacking her with intent to rape.
- Fan Disservice: The "love" scene. One half of it is a straightforward love scene (which is how it's occurring in the man's head, not what really happens), but this is contrasted with shots of the man assaulting the woman and her distant screams being heard all throughout the scene.
- Gainax Ending
- Human Resources: Eden Log uses unknowing human volunteers as a resource to make the tree grow and provide energy for the city.
- The Immune: The man seems partly resistant to whatever it is that mutated everyone. Then it turns out that he is at least partly vulnerable, since he does go into fugue states, rages, and rapes the botanist. Further, this gets mixed with Barrier Maiden when it's revealed his blood actually heals the massive tree and roots. In the end, he "poisons" the tree with his blood, giving it a massive growth spurt as it blooms with new life... and destroys the city.
- Minimalist Cast: The man and the botanist are the only two major characters.
- Names To Run Away From: Biblical Names: Eden Log, the promised paradise that lends the film its title, which turns out to be an evil company harvesting people.
- Near-Rape Experience: The man almost rapes the botanist when he hallucinates that they are making love. He pulls back when he realizes what is actually happening.
- Ontological Mystery: The man wakes up in the middle of a dark cave, not knowing how he got there, and trying to find his way out. It turns out that Eden Log is an energy company that maintains a massive underground facility housing a huge, mythical tree that provides energy to the city by using misled human beings as resources to fuel the tree's growth. The main character is the company's chief of security, and had been sent down to the lower levels with a mission. When he discovers both the truth and his identity, he poisons the tree so it will break out of its containment and overgrow the city.
- Samus Is a Girl: The botanist turns out to be a woman when the man removes her helmet.
- Tomato Surprise: At the end the underground facility is revealed to be in the middle of a major metropolitan city rather than some remote location as expected.
- Tomato in the Mirror: The man is actually Tolbiac, the chief of security of Eden Log.
- World Tree: The Tree has definite elements of this. For all intents and purposes, the entire world shown in the film revolves around it and is tied to it, and when Tolbiac poisons it at the end it brings about the end of the world.
