Anyone going into this movie expecting the wacky warm pop present in albums like Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots will probably be disappointed. It appears to be The Flaming Lips take on classic science fiction; a sort of experimental tribute to the classics, if such a think can exist. And nothing makes this more clear then the score itself, all at once a unique experience only the Lips can create and a throw back to the weird science fiction scores of movies like Forbidden Planet and The Day the Earth Stood Still. Overall, it created an odd and unsettling mix of past and future, as weird and tragic as the story itself.
About the story, as far as I can gather (it certainly didn’t come out and make anything especially clear) its about a number of people stuck on a space station on mars who are having technical problems. There is also some sort of important baby that can’t be let loose while the gravity is wacky (because he might fly away?). Then there is also a lack of oxygen which is causing people to go crazy, Coyne dressed as an alien, lots of vaginas (more on that later), and some sort of Christmas pageant. In this respect, it’s about what you’d expect from The Flaming Lips. It seems to be about desolation, and hope, and babies. I don’t know. Its weird.
Lets talk about the acting. The cast is made up of members and crewmembers of the band and friends of the band. The lead, near as I can tell, is played by Steven Drozd, who is pretty much single-handedly responsible for the Lips sound. The other members of the band all play key roles, Micheal Ivins as the mysterious technician and Wayne Coyne as the alien. The only real actor to speak of is Adam Goldberg, a friend of the band, who shows up in one scene and gives the only great performance in the movie. The rest of the acting is sub-par at best. All but one of the band members (Steven) never say a word, and they are good at that, I suppose. The rest of the cast isn’t so great, but seeing as this is meant to be similar to classic science fiction, good acting is optional.
And really its quite charming, in that home movie low budget way.Speaking of low budget, this movie is it. The great climax involves one of those funny swirly light things you can get for 150 tickets at any given arcade. But again, it all really depends on how serious you take this thing. If one can get over the fact that these objects can probably be found in most households, then one can see a certain charm in it. The same way one can find charm in watching cheesy special effects in an Ed Wood movie, sure you can see the strings, but that’s what makes it so fun. And really, considering the budget, some of the sets are pretty great. Take for example the bubble set where the baby is kept, it looks to me like something you’d find in your average big budget sci-fi movie. And that brings me to my next point, vaginas.
There was a lot of imagery and general weirdness in this movie, but nothing as much as the vaginas, whether they be in place of people’s faces or simple imagery on mars itself, they were everywhere. I can only assume they were supposed to represent either womanhood or birth, and since there was only one women with a whole lotta guys (have fun trying to figure out whose baby that is) I’ll assume it was birth. What this means, and how it relates to anything I do not know. I am sure that there were a lot of vaginas though. Especially in those few weird hallucination scenes, which were fairly unsettling (though I laughed, I’ll admit it).
So now I’ve gone on about technical stuff, but how does it bode on the meaningful scale. Well, I think it pretty perfectly captures what the Lips (or at least Coyne) have always been about. Hard work with a little bit of magic. The ending, even though the acting was especially terrible, turned out to be pretty emotionally effective. I guess maybe that was the rebirth, a rebirth into hope in a desolate and other worldly place. All our lives are Mars, and we all need a little bit of Christmas (or maybe aliens) to help make it all seem worth it. That magic is what keeps us going (Coyne). But not without the hard work characterized by Ivins.
I suppose before I wrap this thing up, I should mention that I’m a huge Lips fanboy. So that may have something to do with all this. But I honestly think that this movie is a good one, even if I’m blinded by my love for its creators. I had my doubts that this thing would ever be finished, and that when it was it was just going to be self-masturbatory nonsense. But it’s not as self involved as that, and I firmly believe that even nonLips fans can find enjoyment in it.
In the interviews on the disc it said that Coyne got this idea from his mom, who had made up an old science fiction movie that never existed. But effected Wayne so much that he saw fit to make it himself. And really, that’s what this is, The Lips making an old sci-fi movie, their own way. The score is perfect, which is as to be expected, and the direction is pretty good. Sure the plot is weak, the acting is bad, and the sets are low budget, but it seems to work with it, not against it. It’s a deeply flawed film but the flaws work, they make it seem more honest in a weird offsetting way. I almost think that without the flaws the film wouldn’t have worked, they are as much a part of the enjoyment as the wonderful score, for example.
