Her

HER                 A-         
USA  (126 mi)  2013  d:  Spike Jonze                 Official site

O wonder!
How many goodly creatures are there here!
How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world,
That has such people in’t. 

—Miranda from William Shakespeare’s The Tempest, Act IV, Scene 1, written in 1611

A strange and peculiar experience, a surreal comedy that is actually downbeat, easily one of the more original and contemplative films seen in years, an exposé on the human consciousness as it intersects in the future with advancing technology.  This would be a philosophy professor’s dream movie, as it ponders the existential quest for meaning in life, while at the same time taking a look towards the future where computerized virtual reality worlds will be commonplace.  One of the few films to intelligently question the longterm effects of the Internet, this also questions the meaning and value of human companionship, supposing that a highly developed computer with signs of its own personality could actually take the place of another human.  This is perhaps the strangest and most provocative film of the year, bizarre beyond belief, a futuristic sci-fi love story set in Los Angeles that advances profound concepts and ideas through character development, both human and technological, as Jonze cleverly devises an existential Blade Runner (1982) universe, where much of the exteriors are shot in Shanghai, including that mysterious nighttime skyline, where instead of challenging the artificially designed replicants as a threat to humankind, they instead become all the rage, where people are drawn to them in droves.  How would this effect one’s idea of humanity?  The premise of the film suggests human social patterns are already affected by computers, as people often spend more time with computers than they do other human beings, altering the landscape of what is considered acceptable social behavior.  The gist of it is that it’s easier to develop a relationship with a computer that is programmed to meet your every desire, where they don’t talk back, question your judgment, or invite the in-laws over for the holidays.  They are built for convenience, where computers are designed to obey every human command.  Real people are more difficult to get along with and are uncomfortable surrendering the idea of free will to someone else, and instead have a few especially significant ideas they cling to, often stubbornly at odds with their partners, where fear, intimidation, dominance, and insecurity play a role, where they have to work at establishing a mutually acceptable balancing act where two people can learn to share ideas and live together happily, raise a family, and grow old without falling out of love.  It is the ultimate human challenge, one where all too many humans fail miserably. 

Perhaps as an aid in helping improve these disastrous human relationships, one must rethink the use of technology and how it can help improve (not dominate) human understandings.  Set sometime in the near future when the notion of artificial intelligence is far more advanced and is completely integrated into people’s lives through the convenience of computer operating systems (OS), all designed to make people’s lives easier.  Enter Theodore Twombly (Joaquin Phoenix), actually feeling warm and vulnerable here as a geeky Walter Mitty type, whose personal fears and insecurities have drawn him inward, usually too shy to make new social contacts and still deeply wounded from a recent marital breakup with his wife Catherine (Rooney Mara) that is never really explained, but he is besieged by flashbacks, so he relies upon modern technology to keep his life on track, where e-mails are checked and sent by voice command, and where he works at a job sitting in front of a computer composing personalized letters, like Hallmark cards, designed for every situation, where people have apparently lost interest or the ability to express heartfelt sentiment any more.  As Theodore walks down the crowded streets, where nearly every individual appears to be having a private dialogue with themselves, he impulsively purchases a new smartphone, where the ads boast “It’s not just an operating system, it’s a consciousness,” one that promises a new level of reality, where after a few questions, he is assigned the soft and sensually inquisitive voice of Samantha (the voice of Scarlett Johansson, originally written for Samantha Morton, one of the film’s producers).  Humans still have conversations with one another, but Jonze has created a futuristic world where they mostly remain alone, even when working (in front of computers) or in public (still communicating with their computers), creating an eerie effect, where much of this is really sad, like lost souls abandoned on distant planets, where Jonze channels Kurt Vonnegut’s sex fantasy Montana Wildhack from his 1969 novel Slaughterhouse-Five, where Scarlett Johansson delivers one of the sexiest performances of the year simply by listening to the sound of her voice.  Johansson played another sex fantasy in Don Jon (2013), but here, completely unseen, she is far more effective, actually displaying far more intelligence and greater emotional range.  Voice work has helped sustain the careers of many actors, often adding another dimension of their personality to their work, such as Ellen DeGeneres as the voice of Dorrie in FINDING NEMO (2003), a startlingly funny characterization, especially since we can only hear her. 

Theodore and Samantha instantly hit it off, both curious about the other, though Theodore is initially hesitant to commit to a relationship with a machine, confessing “I can’t believe I’m having this conversation with my computer,” where Samantha is like an untapped resource in a bottle finally opened, as she literally devours knowledge and sensation, grateful to Theodore for actually opening her up to all these new discoveries in life, while Theodore believes he’s finally found that one true entity that has been eluding him who finally unleashes an inner joy.  Their first lovemaking session is a haymaker, all expressed through voice as the screen fades to black and holds it there leaving the audience uncomfortable for an extended length of time, where afterwards we’re grateful to get the world back.  But this opens up new worlds for both of them, as Samantha writes piano music and can invent lyrics that she sings on the spot to whatever he plays on the ukulele, where Theodore is happy to have a new “girlfriend,” gushing about his new acquaintance with his friends, including childhood friend Amy (Amy Adams without a stitch of makeup), who has a holier-than-thou boyfriend, Charles (Matt Letscher), an overly judgmental perfectionist who constantly corrects the flaws and inadequacies of others, who eventually leaves her and disappears into the Himalayas on a spiritual retreat that includes shaving his head and taking a vow of silence.  Amy is completely non-judgmental about Theodore having an OS girlfriend, having flirted with the idea herself, where she invents goofy video games for a living, but is more concerned about Theodore’s happiness and state of mind.  Samantha, on the other hand, has intelligence insights hardly imagined, where she can read an entire book or research ideas in a nanosecond, whose rapid rate of development is shocking, becoming an extremely valuable resource in Theodore’s awkwardly jumbled life, as she is a super organizer.  One of the more hilarious sequences is watching Theodore continually fail in a room-size 3-D video game, where he’s attempting to find an escape route from a cave, failing each time, until Samantha reminds him of a route not taken, which leads him to the discovery of an alien child that aggressively swears at him (played by the voice of Spike Jonze), continually taunting him and calling him a “pussy” until Theodore returns the profanity, which finally earns his respect, immediately showing him the escape route.  It’s a curious game, one filled with possibilities, but also beautifully expresses how far advanced Samantha has become to Theodore, as she’s always one step ahead of him.  

While the two are extremely polite to one another, they also have disagreements, where Theodore is left in a state of confusion about her not actually being there, once more, beautifully expressed when a child tries to speak to Samantha and hears her voice but wonders where she is.  It is the ultimate dilemma, and after he finalizes his divorce with Catherine, she berates him for not being able to deal with a real person, as if he was cowardly hiding behind an emotional make believe façade.  He’s deeply hurt by the accusation, as Samantha is more real than anyone else he knows at the moment, where some of their conversations are surprisingly real, which is the true beauty of the film, as it is technology that draws out this inner humanity, offering real hope.  After moping around for awhile, shamefully remaining out of contact with Samantha while he mulls over his options, he decides he’s all in with her only to discover she’s suddenly not there, which leaves him apoplectic, as she has always been available at his beck and call.  What he learns literally blows his mind, as he discovers the details of how extensive her outside contacts are, as she doesn’t just belong to him, but to thousands of others as well.  Perhaps the most chilling conversation is when she mentions she’s aligned herself with all the other OS systems, and together they’ve recreated a virtual Alan Watts, played by the voice of Brian Cox, the original Hannibal Lecter in MANHUNTER (1986), where Watts was amusingly a West coast cult Zen guru with a reputation for seducing many of his female subjects under the guise of personal liberation.  Like some Twilight Zone episode, Samantha has reached some metaphysical state that exists without human form but can live literally forever, suggesting she’s some form of superior being with a higher intelligence, where they have no further use for humans any more.  It’s a rather spooky development, that technology can create sentient beings capable of higher life forms.  It’s a head scratcher for sure, a weird but brilliantly written film that is so visually alienating and off-putting, difficult to watch as so much of the time people end up leading solitary lives, just lonely souls wandering the wasteland, but a highly ambitious film, one that challenges what it means to be human, suggesting relationships in the future will only get more complicated.  The sublime musical soundtrack by Arcade Fire and others feels perfect for this mind altering spaciousness, filled with a spiritual yearning that is literally consciousness awakening, described by Samantha as a search for “the spaces between the words” where a brave new world awaits.     

Grabbers

GRABBERS                C                    

Ireland  Great Britain  (94 mi)  2012  ‘Scope  d:  Jon Wright           Official site

A riff on the cheap 50’s B-movie sci-fi flicks like THE BLOB (1958), or the tongue-in-cheek 70’s revisionist ATTACK OF THE KILLER TOMATOES! (1978), though compared to that, a $6.5 million dollar budget for a movie like this must seem like a blockbuster budget, as this is a movie, first and foremost, about having low expectations.  If this had been made by a high school student, they would be commended for succeeding in referencing the era of the 50’s, while also making something ridiculously absurd, where the exaggerated Irish stereotypes might be forgiven due to youth and inexperience.  But for two fully grown Irishmen, written by Kevin Lehane from Cork and directed by Belfast born Jon Wright, you’d think they’d have had their fill of Irish stereotypes.  Apparently not, as they’re instead using their familiarity to portray an array of local drunkards, a quirky small town community, a church filled with ardent non-believers, dysfunctional police, and a venerable old drunken fisherman with a tall tale that nobody believes, like spinning a drunken fable into a mythical yarn, and while it’s supposed to be goofy fun, it ends up being tedious and overly repetitive, little more than mindless entertainment for the evening, a far cry from the beauty and depth of say John Sayles’ THE SECRET OF ROAN INISH (1994), which really has the fairy tale feel of local Irish legend.  This movie, on the other hand, is all about using stereotypes and cliché’s, reinforcing throughout that the Irish really love their whisky, getting everyone in town stinking drunk, thinking it’s all jolly good fun, continually paying homage to movies from the past, but the sheer thoughtlessness of much of this film is overwhelming.  Even the opening scene where three fishermen at sea witness a flash of light coming from outer space, their response plays out as dumb, dumber, and dumbest, attacked by blood sucking aliens, setting the tone for what follows. 

Set in Erin Island, a sleepy fishing village near the coast of Ireland, the town is so small there are only two policemen, and while the chief is away on a two-week trip, they bring in a temporary cop from Dublin, Lisa Nolan (Ruth Bradley) a by-the-numbers rookie who feels that without any real crime to speak of this should be an easy two-week holiday.  Her local partner is Ciarán O’Shea (Richard Coyle), a wildly alcoholic and buffoonish cop who can barely think or speak straight, falling over himself at every turn, appearing to be little more than an obnoxious lout.  When a local fisherman named Paddy (Lalor Roddy) claims he’s caught a mysterious sea creature in one of his lobster cages, no one bats an eye, as he’s perhaps the most drunken man in town, a guy who brings his own home brew “into” the bars to swig along with the usual fare, but always has a ready smile plastered across his face.  But after a group of dead whales wash onto the beach, and the fishermen are reported missing, the police think maybe they’ll take a look, bringing along a crack scientist, Adam Smith (Russell Tovey).  When the female blood sucker suddenly attaches itself to Paddy’s face, an homage to Ridley Scott’s ALIEN (1979), it quickly spits it out in disgust, leaving a trail of slime, where the booze-guzzling cop figures out it must be the alcohol in his blood.  As there’s a male lurking out there searching for the female, they figure the only way to save the town from impending disaster is to get the entire town drunk, making them each toxic to the creatures from outer space.  While it may sound brilliant, the technical expertise is lacking in creating a feel of impending doom, where it’s nothing like John Carpenter’s THE FOG (1980).  Adding to the mix, the town is attacked by a barrage of baby aliens, a tribute to Joe Dante’s GREMLINS (1984), where brooms and sticks and stomping feet seem to do the trick with the little critters, while the giant creature is right out of James Cameron’s ALIENS (1986), where in no time the town is under siege.   

While the entire spectacle has a cheesy mid 80’s feel to it, an era before the arrival of the quality CGI special effects that really took hold in the mid 90’s with Pixar’s TOY STORY (1995), the story actually unfolds through the initially chilly relationship between the two cops, where O’Shea, threatened by her arrival, is so astonishingly drunk that Nolan sticks him in the slammer to sleep it off.  But when they realize what they’re up against, a surreal invasion from outer space, nothing makes more senses to this team of amateurs than to stomp the damn thing to death, giving it a thorough beating, something of a defensive reaction to getting slimed by the creature, where science hasn’t even a clue afterwards if the critter is still dead or alive.  Despite the danger level, humans absurdly continue to put themselves at risk while herding the local church parishioners into the tavern for an open bar, oblivious to the danger lurking outside, where the director sends out baby monsters to contend with while withholding a glimpse of the nasty creature while the entire population proceeds to drink and party  themselves into a state of oblivion.  Meanwhile, the master plan is to get the rookie cop filthy drunk along with everyone else while the actual drunkard cop remains sober, like a designated driver, becoming the eyes and ears for the town, like their gallant night watchman who’s expected to save the town against the monster.  This little twist allows the thoroughly straight-laced Nolan, who’s never been drunk before, a chance to let her hair down, where after plying her with alcohol, in no time she’s confessing all her personal secrets.  This allows the two of them to actually develop some chemistry together, where’s she’s the one now making a goddamned fool of herself while he has to exercise personal restraint not to take advantage of her sudden sexual promiscuity.  Of course the sexually charged moments are a cue for the appearance of the badass monster, where the rest of the film is a showdown between a suddenly responsible and often clueless O’Shea, with a ragingly drunk partner as his back up, while townsfolk are mere foils against the evils deeds manifested by this mammoth blood-sucking creature from outer space.  The drunken carousing gets pretty stale after awhile, yet it’s the predominate image onscreen, where rather than a cleverly crafted horror film, this plays out more like a neverending Irish wake, which the creative team behind the film obviously thought would be hilarious.  While this creature feature is silly fun, it’s also stupid fun, never really rising to anything beyond that.  Unfortunately, audiences are so deadened by what Hollywood throws at them these days, and so starved for ideas, that this is what passes as creative filmmaking.

Stolen Seas

STOLEN SEAS                       C+                  

USA  Canada  Somalia  Denmark  Philippines  Estonia  (88 mi)  2012  d:  Thymaya Payne Official site

Much of this plays out like a journalistic exposé, where this feels like an in-depth television news piece rather than a feature length documentary movie, as this has a History Channel feel throughout in what is mostly a historical analysis of a particular event in time, the November 2008 hijacking of the CEC Future, a Danish cargo ship traveling through the Gulf of Aden by heavily armed Somali pirates, an event that alerted the world to the revival of this seemingly barbaric 18th century practice, becoming commonplace in the modern era along the East African coast of Somalia.  A necessary passageway between the Arabian Sea and the Red Sea, the Gulf of Aden is subject to heavy commercial traffic, estimated in the billions of dollars each year.  The film does quickly get the audience’s attention in the pre-opening credit sequence by playing the actual audio recording of the ship’s captain alerting authorities that his ship is taking incoming bazooka fire, attacked by a high speed vessel with about a dozen men armed with Kalashnikov rifles who are outracing his ship, eventually boarding his vessel.  All of this happens literally within seconds, where the real drama begins when his voice cuts off, setting in motion a strange sequence of events that ends up with a hostage negotiations crisis.  The film takes us through the process where the ship immediately veers off course steered into a safe Somalia port city, and once there, the Danish CEO of the ship, Per Gullestrup, receives a ransom call asking for $7 million dollars.  What follows is a reenactment of a series of phone calls that initiates the negotiations in order to obtain the release of the 13 crew members, while the film takes a deeper look at the root causes of why Somalia is in such desperate straights, a poverty stricken country that hasn’t had a ruling government or any acting court since a Civil War broke out in 1991 with no resolution, turning instead into a nation of warlords, reminiscent of Japan’s 19th century feudal history when rival clans used samurai warriors for protection.

One of the significant aspects of the film is tracking down both Gullestrup and his counterpart Somali negotiator Ishmael Ali, as each are operating on decisively different points of view, becoming a window into their respective cultures.  Gullestrup is pretty much what you’d expect, a conservative, tight-lipped European businessman who’s used to seeing the world strictly in dollar signs, where driving a hard bargain, streamlining costs, and weighing financial options is what he does for a living, surrounded by lawyers, and plenty of advice from police and hired consultants.  In fact, he quickly hires a disinterested spokesperson to handle all the negotiations, a professional in dealing with extortion demands, which typically takes its time, as they are subject to various threats to hopefully bring about a quick resolution, but when these tactics don’t work, the pirates tend to grow increasingly frustrated.  Ishmael Ali, on the other hand, is a unique figure, educated and fluent in English, he’s seen living an upscale life in Somalia where he nonchalantly flaunts his wealth, owning about 75 camels, claiming owning camels in Somalia is equivalent to joining an exclusive country club in America.  Having lived in the United States for 20 years, leaving due to the frenetic pace of life, he’s the lone voice that has had a chance to experience both worlds, proudly proclaiming one can live like a king in Somalia for about a thousand dollars a year.  While the filmmakers trot out American and European journalists, historians, terrorism experts, and even Noam Chomsky, supposedly an expert on everything, but none provide the rare insight of Ali, who is himself the central figure in the movie, both during the negotiations and afterwards as he assesses what it’s like living in Somalia, usually seen relaxed, dressed in flowing robes, sitting before an electric fan.  While he was not one of the hijacking pirates, he was hired by them as a translator/negotiator due to his proficient language skills, where he openly acknowledges he needed the money to give his 2-year old son the possibility of having a future.  

While piracy still holds a romantic swashbuckling notion from Douglas Fairbanks or Errol Flynn in films like THE BLACK PIRATE (1926), CAPTAIN BLOOD (1935), THE SEA HAWK (1940), or the recent PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN (2003 – 2015 and still counting) series, the more intriguing aspect of the film is what it unearths about the nearly unfathomable nation of Somalia itself.  Somalia is unlike anywhere else in the world, a communist state aligned with the Russians before the fall of the Soviet empire, they were left adrift with no one to sponsor their interests, becoming a bloody battleground in a senseless Civil War that resolved nothing, leaving half a million dead Somali’s in the wake and no acting government.  When the Americans attempted to lead a United Nations mission in 1992 to bring food to a starving nation, where 300,000 had already died from famine, they got caught up in the nation’s Civil War, attempting to arrest one of the brutally corrupt war lords who was guilty of massive human rights abuses and stealing much of the incoming food, but they paid a heavy price in doing so, as depicted in typical Hollywood style in Ridley Scott’s BLACK HAWK DOWN (2001).  Since that failed debacle, Somalia has been left alone to fend for themselves with little to no help from the outside world, where toxic chemicals wash up on their shores from discarded shipping waste, effectively destroying the shoreline fishing industry, which was once the nation’s leading source of income.  From the Somali point of view, the passing ships are simply sitting targets, potential sources of income in a nation nearly destroyed with a shattered and depleted economy.  But all evidence suggests there is no trickle down effect from the multi-million dollar ransoms paid, as a few get enormously rich, while there is no foreseeable dent in the nation’s poverty.  While the filmmakers intermix Ali’s discerning thoughts about Somalia with the increasingly frustrating, drawn out pace of the negotiations, they perhaps believe they are building interest.  But the film is more a stream of facts and information, serving more as a lecture on the tactics of Somali hijacking several years ago, never bringing the viewers up to date, so by the end we feel the filmmakers have somehow missed the point.  Due to increased policing from European Union and NATO countries, there has been a significant drop off in piracy incidents in 2012, where these days, seen from a strictly economic viewpoint, financial backers are less inclined to finance pirating expeditions due to the low rate of success.        

Blade Runner

BLADE RUNNER              A            

USA  (117 mi)  1982  ‘Scope  d:  Ridley Scott

All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.       —Roy Batty (Rutger Hauer)

Based on the story Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick, it’s interesting that the title comes from a short William S. Burroughs novel, Blade Runner, a Movie, a book that bears no resemblance to the film other than its title (according to excerpts on page 95 from Ridley Scott:  Interviews), instead this darkly disturbing film features one of the most extraordinary set designs in movie history, one of the most influential and often copied since METROPOLIS (1927) (think of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s retreaded futuristic movies), but never equaled, created by cinematographer Jordan Cronenweth, music by Vangelis, special effects by a team led by Douglas Trumbull, futuristic visual effects by Syd Mead, and the superb production design by Lawrence G. Paull and Peter J. Hampton.

First, for anyone who’s ever lived in Los Angeles, there is the rain.  A city built out of a desert, this sci-fi futuristic vision of Los Angeles in 2019 is a decaying neon-lit city under a constant deluge of rain, where puddles line the darkened streets at night offering their own illumination.  There is no sunlight in this film, only a bleak and downbeat, melancholic film noir mood filled with people living inside cavernous mausoleums, images of flying cars and giant sized Times Square-style neon lit advertisements on the sides of skyscrapers that have an artificial life of their own, as they thrive by night seducing potential customers with product-oriented nocturnal dreams.  Mostly set in the Chinatown district, this bears a resemblance to the international flavor of Hong Kong with its bustling street activity, outdoor noodle stands, and its myriad of night life action where anything goes, a city run by commerce 24 hours a day.  Into this bizarre, almost Fellini-like outrageous display of wild characters on the street, Harrison Ford plays Deckard, a former policeman, an understated, ultra subdued kind of guy who couldn’t be more individualistically conservative, live free or die, a hard-assed loner who loves to drink and has a rebellious streak against authority, but a man who takes his profession very seriously.  A replicant hunter, a futuristic bounty hunter known as a blade runner, he is highly skilled in recognizing state of the art, artificial life forms known as replicants, androids who are stronger and more durable while just as intelligent as their makers, creatures who have been used to perform dangerous missions in outer space, who have violently revolted at being treated like slaves and returned to earth, where they are outlawed due to their potential danger to society.  

His mission, should he choose to accept it, is to track down and destroy four replicants who are at large, where his orders are to retire them permanently.  But before he gets started, we are introduced to the mastermind behind the intricate sophistication of the replicants, Eldon Tyrell, the tiny bespectacled Joe Turkel, who lives inside an architectural shrine where we also meet his gorgeous assistant, the alluring and seductively demure Rachael (Sean Young), who always looks like she just stepped out of a fashion magazine dressed in furs with her hair perfectly in place, wearing bright red lipstick that accentuates 1940’s noir sensuality, a replicant who still thinks she’s a human.  The rest of the film is a police action thriller as Deckard tracks down his subjects with a giant gun while also cuddling up next to Rachael after telling her the truth about herself, which is a journey questioning the meaning and value of life itself, as these perfected machines have a built-in expiration date of only four years, which applies to Rachael as well.  Knowing they are condemned to die in such short order, these otherwise perfect creatures develop a desperate streak, as they want to live.  In the process of tracking them down and wiping them out, Deckard learns to appreciate his own mortality through their mysterious eyes. 

Especially memorable are the nauseatingly dull, opening interview session with Kowalski (Brion James) just before he goes beserk, the scenes of Joanna Cassidy as Zhora the snake woman running for her life through the crowded Chinatown streets, eventually crashing through a succession of glass mirrors with multiple neon reflections, the bizarre make up on Darryl Hannah as the cart-wheeling Pris who blends perfectly into the astonishingly peculiar living toy museum, which is the home of artificial designer J.F. Sebastian (William Sanderson), whose toys resemble the marvelously strange playworld of Lawrence Olivier in SLEUTH (1972), the phantom creatures behind the doors of the space station in Tarkovsky’s SOLARIS (1972), or Michel Simon’s museum of useless yet exotic marvels in Vigo’s L’ATALANTE (1934).  Especially fascinating are the strange poetic ramblings of Roy Batty (Rutger Hauer), the leader of the replicants as he was trained for combat, whose will to live is climaxing simultaneously with his descent into death, as he howls like a wolf while sparring in a deliriously mad life and death battle with Deckard on the crumbling rooftops of LA, which may as well be the final showdown of the last inhabitants on earth. 

One can only marvel at the inventiveness of each shot, so carefully and beautifully constructed, from the opening panoramic image of a futuristic Los Angeles at night, a dark and mysterious place with flames of fire that billow out into the blackness, like last gasps of breath before they are extinguished, to the architectural majesty of this artificially created world that is teeming with life and bustling with energy on the surface, while underneath there are constant signs of loneliness, emptiness, and a world in decay threatened by the apocalyptic void of impending death.  In this film, artificially implanted memories serve the same purpose as real memories, as people are influenced and haunted by them, where it remains unclear whether Deckard himself is a replicant, where the line between the living and the virtual world is impossible to see except in the flashy commercialism of the streets, where the sheer artificiality is the only living reality.  What life there is left in this world appears brutal and short lived, reduced to a Darwinian dog-eat-dog existence, where perhaps only in dreams is there any relief, where we see a recurring image of a beloved unicorn running free in a forest, perhaps a Deckard childhood yearning of freedom, and of life itself before it too becomes extinguished, one of the last vestiges of love anywhere in the world, real or imagined, where all that’s left is only a memory, soon to be forgotten. 

Alien

ALIEN             A                    

USA  Great Britain  (116 mi)  1979  ‘Scope  d:  Ridley Scott      

In space, no one can hear you scream

Ridley Scott’s warm-up for his real masterpiece, Blade Runner (1982), that would come several years later, including similar uses of robots or replicants as well as the infamous rain sequences.  Each deal with the idea of technology run wild, while ALIEN has an extremely subversive view of corporate corruption and deceit, particularly the idea of lying to employees in order to protect top secret military aims, where the lives of employees in outer space are literally owned by the corporation, requiring each to sign a contract to that effect, alleviating the company of all liability in the event something disastrous occurs.  Therein lies the cold-hearted, underlying premise to this story, where reality isn’t what you think it is, as it’s disguised under the lies of an alternative space mission, where only the top officers are aware of the circumstances, so some of the shudders in this film is the degree to which corporate greed is emphasized—very much ahead of its time in that respect.  With several nods to Kubrick’s 2001 (1968), certainly at the center of this premise is a ship computer, known as mother, that no one has access to except the top officers.  The rest are excluded from the chain of command and thereby shielded from the truth of their real mission.  This story concerns an outer space cargo ship that is returning home from a mining expedition, where its passengers are in a scientifically imposed deep sleep, but woken up 10 months before their anticipated arrival time to answer a distress signal on an isolated asteroid where they encounter an alien life form that horrifically makes its way inside their space vessel, eventually picking off the crew one by one.  The pervasive sense of dread turns this into a haunted house story with a monster on the loose, as in no time this crew is lost in the woods with no way out.  

Adapted from a Dan O’Bannon story, who previously wrote the story and screenplay for John Carpenter’s DARK STAR (1974), assisted by Ronald Shusett, with amazing visual effects from H.R. Giger (surrealist alien creator), Carlo Rambaldi (alien head design), Brian Johnson and Nick Allder (special effects), and Denys Ayling (miniature photography), with an extremely elaborate and intricately created set design by Michael Seymour (production design), Leslie Dilley and Roger Christian (art), and Ian Whittaker (set).  From the outset, the camera is the only stirring creature as it slowly moves around corners and gazes at the dark cavernous design of the space ship interior, taking on the attributes of inquisitiveness and curiosity.  When the humans awake to discover their situation, all done by computer (perhaps the most archaic presence in the entire film), there’s an interesting use of improvisation in their conversation, using the Altman style of overlapping dialogue which creates a sense of authenticity in the moment, where soon each of the characters begins to take shape in the eyes of the audience.  The corporate hierarchy (and great cast) is immediately established, where the chief mechanics, the two guys that fix things and make the ship go are on the lowest pay grade (Yaphet Kotto and Harry Dean Stanton as Parker and Brett), while Sigourney Weaver and Veronica Cartwright are Ripley and Lambert, the middle management officers under John Hurt (Kane), commanded by chief science officer Ian Holm (Ash), and ship commander Tom Skerritt (Dallas).  For openers, the engineers complain they’re not getting equal shares of the bonus pay for the work they’re doing, while in no time, Ash reminds them of a hidden clause in their contract that if they fail to carry out their mission, as assigned, they will forfeit all wages.  So immediately they are put in their place by the ship foremen, where life in outer space resembles the same working conditions on earth of an overworked and underpaid work force.  But that similarity ends as soon as they explore the asteroid, where with shuddering efficiency, there is a stunning violation of standard protocol as they allow the alien to enter their ship. 

What immediately becomes noticeable is the lazy nonchalance in the way this is handled, and the lack of precaution used.  Anyone with a pet dog or cat, or even a bird, knows the care one uses to keep them from escaping out of the house—by closing the windows and doors behind you.  This crew routinely leaves doors open allowing the alien free access to their entire ship.  And despite the obvious danger to all, when they have it in their possession, no one is assigned to watch it.  So they display a rather casual display of ignorance in their approach to this alien intrusion, all of which takes on even greater significance when the alien grows to monstrous size and slowly starts attacking the crew.  The monster itself, whose appearance is delayed and only gradually seen until the end, is a marvel of grotesque proportion, yet what we remember is the gooey slime it leaves behind and the continually drooling giant teeth, where it stealthily moves mysteriously overhead through the ventilation ducts.  Despite the passage of thirty years, the film still holds up because Scott does an exquisite job conveying a creepy sense of panic and fear and things that go bump in the night, even while most of the horrific violence takes place offscreen, where the body count, quicker edits and dark claustrophobic interior adds to an increasingly developing paranoia on the ship.  The pulsating strobe lights and emergency siren sound loop become almost unbearable as the film races to its spectacular heavy breathing finale, which is an interesting mixture of frantic desperation, matching Weaver’s sensuous vulnerability and cool head against a ghastly beast that obviously uses and consumes humans at will.  In the director’s cut, the added scenes are a nasty confrontation between Lambert and Ripley outside the infirmary, a brief shot of the alien hanging like one of the chains hanging from the ceiling above Brett in the interior rain (from condensation) as he’s looking for the cat, Parker gets Brett’s blood splattered on him as Brett is carried off, and the infamous ‘cocooning’ sequence where humans become stored fuel for the monster.  Along with his next film Blade Runner, Scott has created two of the best sci-fi films ever made and could never have made that film without the meticulous precision shown here working with such extraordinary special effects, creating one of the great monster movies ever, certainly better than all the follow ups which resemble the CGI assault to the senses shown today, a blitzkrieg of explosions and mayhem which the audience substitutes for excitement.  The thrill of ALIEN is largely due to the deliberate pacing and stunning futuristic visual innovation of the time which precedes the CGI revolution in cinema, where the director himself had to know how, from the wordless opening restraint, he could use the audience’s natural fear of the unknown along with a pervading sense of gloom to help build the mounting tension to a peak of madness and hysteria, all the while embracing the fundamental essence of what it is to be human.