The Ending of ‘Aniara’ Explained: What Is Mima & What Happened to the Survivors?
‘Aniara’ is a 2018 Swedish-Danish science fiction film based on a 1956 epic poem by Harry Martinson. Directed by Pella Kågerman and Hugo Lilja, the movie is set in a dystopian future where Earth is suffering from climate change. Mass migration to Mars is underway, but when a routine trip from Earth to Mars goes off course, the passengers aboard the spacecraft Aniara must grapple with the challenges of their new reality.
I was pleasantly surprised after watching ‘Aniara’ i didn’t expect the movie to deal with the subject in such a shallow way and yet it managed to convey some pretty powerful messages. However, due to the fact that most of what we’re supposed to notice is left untold, plenty of viewers struggle to understand the movie especially its ending. That’s why we’re here, let’s go.
What is Mima?
The movie actually starts with scenes of Earth being in the midst of horrific destruction. Storms, climate change, pollution, and just general human negligence leave the plant almost uninhabitable. This is where Aniara comes on. Aniara is a luxurious top-of-the-line spaceship that is supposed to transport human refugees from Earth to Mars in only three weeks. Aniara has everything you could possibly need and more as it’s designed to be self-sustainable and provide humans with food, oxygen, water, artificial gravity, and everything they need for a safe passage.
The character we will mostly follow is MR – Mimarobe, this is not a name but rather a title. Mimarobe is a person who handles Mima an extremely advanced artificial intelligence system that is capable of tapping into human memories, experiences, and feelings in order to create a virtual-reality 360 experience of any kind of imagery that it wants to project to you. Mima is onboard Aniara to simulate Earth’s nature and Mimarobe handles Mima and trains people on how to not get overwhelmed by the experience. Once you walk under Mima and lower your head down, you are completely submerged in the illusion, it’s just like you are there, on Earth while it was green and lush and beautiful.
For the most part, people are uninterested in Mima, since the trip to Mars takes only 3 weeks, it’s hardly enough time to become anxious, still, Mimarobe has to be onboard. Mimarobe shares her room with an older woman who is identified only as an Astronomer. She is also a standard part of the crew and despite being cynical and having an unpleasant personality she and Mimarobe manage to find something to talk about to kill the time. Mimarobe is also in love with one of the pilots, Isagel. But Isagel doesn’t seem to notice her at all and mostly ignores her in the common areas.
What happened to Aniara?
During the first week of the trip, the passengers are suddenly alarmed when the spaceship appears to hit something. Chaos overtakes the passengers as things and people are being thrown around like ragdolls. However, the situation calms down rather quickly and the Captain starts streaming a video message all across the ship explaining the situation. Apparently, Aniara had to veer off the course suddenly to avoid hitting some space debris, however, one piece of that debris managed to pierce the ship’s nuclear reactor which resulted in an immediate meltdown within the reactor’s core.
To avoid explosion and nuclear death for all passengers onboard, the crew had to eject the reactor and all of the ship’s fuel. However, this also means that the ship now doesn’t have any propulsion, or navigational control meaning that it cannot resume its former course and is merely floating in space, going farther off its course with every passing second. To put it in simple terms, the captain has no way to steer the ship.
Captain Chefone further explains that this difficult situation will be remedied in the future, as soon as they come across an astronomical body large enough, its gravitational pull should correct the ship’s course and they should be back on their way toward Mars. However, according to their estimates, this won’t happen for another 2 years. The passengers are panicking slightly, since what appeared to be a three-week-long journey now suddenly turned into 2 years.
Mima gains on importance
Some time has passed since the collision with the space debris and people have spent months now aboard Aniara. After 2 months, all food aboard was eaten and now the passengers are surviving strictly on algae. The ship’s crew has to ask volunteers to report to the algae plant since the production has increased a hundredfold. Algae plant is not the only job that is rapidly gaining importance, as Mimarobe finds that more and more people are seeking solace and peace of mind with Mima. The queues to reach the AI are getting longer and she is getting more and more overwhelmed being unable to train people properly and ensure that everyone spends adequate time with the AI.
Mimarobe asks the captain for some more people to help her out and he agrees. Stressing the importance of all people having access to Mima to calm themselves down, especially now that the anxiety is at an all-time high level since the two-year mark is getting closer. Mimarobe also struggles with her emotional contact with Isagel as the pilot continues to ignore her.
One night before falling asleep Mimarobe asks which celestial body they plan on using to turn and the Astronomer explains that there is no celestial body, at least nothing that they will reach during their lifetime. The Captain lied to everybody to avoid chaos breaking out. Mimarobe is shocked but manages to compose herself.
The Astronomer however keeps spreading this around and soon people are starting to panic and attack everyone on board. Mimarobe is called to calm down one guy who found out the truth, she drags him to Mima hall and explains to him that this ship might as well be better than Mars. She tries to explain to him that Mars is nothing to look forward to, it’s a barren cold rock and nothing grows there except for one specific type of tulip.
As she is trying to calm down current people at Mima hall, more people are arriving and simply crashing to the floor, having no concept of time and space with Mimarobe being unable to train them properly on how to interact with Mima.
Mimarobe confronts Captain with what she learned and he confirms that the Astronomer was correct, there is no celestial body and there is no way for them to correct their course. The Captain plans on going public with the information once people get used to eating algae.
The Death of Mima
Three years have passed at this point and people have now turned toward cheap thrills, alcohol, and fun to forget that they are most likely never leaving Aniara, at least not alive. Mimarobe is at a nightclub and she hooks up with a guy searching for some casual sex. However, as she is getting physical with the guy in the middle of the hallway Isagel catches them, having a disappointed look on her face.
Mimarobe wants to let Isagel know that it means nothing but still, she drags the guy to her room and they have casual sex. At work, Mimarobe is now completely and utterly overwhelmed as queues that are forming in front of the Mima Hall are reaching massive proportions. Some people are even trying to bribe Mimarobe to let them jump the queue however Mimarobe declines, trying to be fair toward everybody. The only exception to this rule is Isagel who Mimarobe lets into the Mima Hall after working hours. Isagel is thankful and Mimarobe explains that the guy she saw her with meant nothing, it was just casual sex. Isagel leaves the Mima Hall with an indifferent expression once again.
In the following weeks, Mimarobe starts noticing something strange, as she is enjoying Mima herself, she notices that her virtual reality experience is starting to become corrupted, as she is floating in the gentle river the birds that were flying above her die, and start falling all over her. Mima also starts chanting some creepy and horrifying things.
Mimarobe is now aware that Mima needs rest, as all people aboard now use Mima and all of them carry their own trauma and memories regarding the destruction of Earth Mima is getting corrupted, evil, and depressed. To give Mima some time to recover from reading people’s corrupted minds all day long, she closes down the Mima Hall which leads to a lot of disgruntled people reporting this to the captain.
The Captain warns Mimarobe that she cannot block access to Mima as it’s one of the most vital factors in keeping the peaceful atmosphere onboard. Mimarobe says to the captain that Mima needs some rest and proposes that the AI be shut down for at least a month. The captain says that this is out of the question and warns her once again not to block access to Mima.
The next day, as one older man is using Mima he gets bombarded with memories of Earth being destroyed and horrible apocalyptic scenes. As Mimarobe is trying to break his connection to the Mima, the AI comes to life again and starts chanting, basically asking for either its death or the death of humans. As Mimarobe is trying to handle Mima, the AI commits suicide, and debris and ashes start raining on the people below.
Following the death of Mima everyone is devastated with Mimarobe being devastated most of all. The people aboard Aniara claim that Mima self-destructed due to Mimarobe jealously guarding access to it and Captain, needing someone to blame instead of himself proposes that Mimarobe be jailed and punished for her crimes. Isagel tries to talk them out of it but the decision has been made.
Isagel is caught and beaten due to trying to warn Mimarobe about what’s coming, and Mimarobe is jailed for “her crimes” against Mima and the people of Aniara.
Year 4 – The rise of cults
It’s been 4 years since Aniara has strayed of course and the society within the ship looks drastically different than it used to. Isagel and Mimarobe are released from prison prematurely because of the massive way of suicides which left the ship understaffed. Isagel will be transferred back to logistics while Mimarobe is supposed to assume the role of a teacher. The captain believes that the brightest kids should be educated in the hopes that one day they will figure out how to save them and revert the course of the ship.
The wave of suicides and depression is not the only thing happening on the ship it would seem that cults have appeared trying to replace Mima with even more ridiculous beliefs. Isagel and Mimarobe join the festivities one night but it turns out to be a massive orgy orchestrated in order to repopulate the ship due to its dwindling population.
Year 5 – Hope appears
Less than a year has passed following the night of the orgy and we can see that Isagel is pregnant. She is not happy regarding the child at all and doesn’t want to give birth to it on the ship. Isagel is heavily depressed and claims that she is not giving birth to a child but rather to a prisoner. Mimarobe tries to think of a way to cheer Isagel up, and she decides to build a beam screen that would project images of Earth around the ship so the people can have at least some connection to Earth in the absence of Mima.
The captain declines since he considers educating the children a more important task. Isagel gives birth and soon after having the boy she tries to drown him in a pool but luckily changes her mind at the last second.
But not all is hopeless one day the Astronomer discovers what appears to be some kind of an anomaly, and the captain and the crew conclude that it has to be some kind of probe that is possibly carrying enough fuel to allow them to make a turn and resume their normal course. The captain doesn’t even wait for the confirmation of their theories before he makes a huge announcement to the passengers. All will be well.
It appears that they will come closer to the probe in 1 year, and what’s one more year when you’ve been trapped on a ship for 5 years up to this point?
Yeah 6 – Abandon all hope
A year has passed since the Astronomer discovered the probe and it’s coming closer to the ship soon it will be possible to bring it on board. Isagel and Mimarobe are raising their son, full of hope and it even appears that Isagel is feeling more like herself.
The luck takes a turn for the worse once more when the probe gets brought to the ship and the crew cannot identify it, break through it, or prove that it contains any fuel at all. One scientist among the crew claims that it cannot be ruled out that the probe doesn’t contain the fuel, and its material is most likely radioactive but they have no way of converting it.
As weeks pass by the work on the probe has reached a standstill and it’s more likely that it’s completely unusable. The Astronomer gets drunk and starts harassing the scientists working on it. The Astronomer is heavily embittered and it claims that the probe is not “a miracle,” it’s a random chance devoid of meaning and it’s utterly useless. She grabs a cross from the necklace that one of the scientists is carrying and starts mocking him how not even god will save him.
She is retrained and the captain has a stern talk with her. The Astronomer was supposed to receive an award tonight for her discovery but she needs to keep the fact that the probe is useless silent until more is known. The Captain propositions that he holds a speech. He will claim that everything is going as planned in order to avoid people using hope. The astronomer however doesn’t want to keep silent and plans on spreading the truth. She claims that they are trapped in a coffin, a sarcophagus and there is no salvation for them. Just as she is about to leave the room Captain shoots her in the back killing her instantly.
A small funeral is held for the Astronomer as her body is ejected into space. Following this devastating discovery, Mimarobe starts taking drugs and spending her time in clubs and having fun. She is absent so much that she doesn’t even notice that Isagel’s depression is worsening once again.
One day the ship passes through what appears to be a massive solar storm, destabilizing it completely. The ship is rocked to its core and many passengers lose their lives in the ordeal. Mimarobe returns to her apartment to check up on Isagel and their son whom they are raising together and notices that Isagel didn’t even attempt to help the child.
Mimarobe knows that she has to do something and she starts working on the beam screen tirelessly. Mimarobe succeeds and beautiful images of Earth are being projected all around the ship. The few survivors that remain are enjoying them including the captain. Now every time the passengers look through the window they can enjoy the imagery of wonderful waterfalls from Earth. Mimarobe hurries back to her apartment to let Isagel know about her invention.
She has trouble entering the apartment and this is when she notices that Isagel hanged herself. After that horrifying discovery, Mimarobe looks for her son and finds him drowned in the tub. It appears as if Mimarobe lost everything. At the same time, the Captain counts the victims of the solar storm, as it turns out the ship is running out of supplies so severely that the corpses cannot be ejected into space wrapped in sheets, everything needs to be conserved.
Year 10 – even the captain gives up
It’s been 10 years since Aniara has strayed of course and the Captain plans to commemorate the event by giving a speech. Apparently, the crew and passengers of Aniara are pioneers who have gone further into space than anybody before them. Which is incredibly depressing. The captain decides to award the medal to Mimarobe for building the beam screen, but it’s a hollow victory really only a few people remain onboard and they are sick of it. The stench of depression cannot be masked.
Mimarobe receives her award but she is completely empty inside, she notices the captain’s bandaged wrists meaning that he most likely attempted to cut his wrists and commit suicide. There’s also one more massive problem aboard. Due to a lack of supplies, manpower, and pretty much everything else it appears that their water and food derived from algae have become contaminated meaning that yet another portion of the population is going to soon die.
Year 24 – Aniara descends into final darkness
It’s been 24 years since the accident and only a handful of survivors remain on board including Mimarobe. All of them are in miserable condition, staved and dehydrated. The survivors sit on the floor of the ship cross-legged as one woman preaches about the divine power of sunlight back on Earth.
Year 5981407 – What happened to Aniara and the survivors?
5981407 years after Aniara was struck by an accident that made the ship stray from the course, the ship is finally entering the Lyra constellation frozen and devoid of all possible life. The gravity device on board stopped functioning a long time ago and we can see pieces of dust and algae floating suspended in air. It seems that Aniara is approaching what appears to be a planet capable of supporting life, as it looks almost exactly like Earth from this vantage point.
The planet’s surface is covered in water and greenery and it looks like it has a pretty thick atmosphere capable of sustaining life as we know it.
So what was the point of the probe & the movie?
One great mystery that remained was, what was in the probe? Well, our human way of thinking leads us to believe that the probe holds some higher meaning and it has to be connected to the salvation of the Aniara crew right? Well, it seems like it wasn’t it was as the Astronomer predicted, just a random chance, an occurrence. Human life despite being insignificant in the large scheme of things always has delusions of grandeur and this is what the Astronomer was trying to prove in her few brief scenes.
Aniara was a bubble of nothing floating through space, no one sent them that probe to save them and there was no divinity that was watching over them. The final scene of the movie proved how everything was random, the ship managed to reach salvation 5981407 years after setting off and 5981350 years too late to save any human onboard, it’s not even ironic it’s pure random chance. Only we as viewers assumed that it had some deeper meaning to it. The point of the movie was that humans, despite being incredibly fragile assume that they are the center of the universe and that everything has some hidden meaning targeted toward them, while in reality, our existence is inconsequential and microscope compared to what we already objectively know about time, space and everything in between.
I do realize that this conclusion is ironic since we’re trying to dig deeper into the meaning of the movie that’s supposed to demonstrate how everything is meaningless.
Have better ideas? Let us know in the comments below!