In a new video-review feature we’re calling “Weird View Crew,” Pete Trbovich brings you a look at Space Is the Place. Mystical musician Sun Ra schemes to relocate the Black race to the planet Saturn in this low-budget Afrofuturist movie that’s part concert film, part blaxploitation joint, and all Sun Ra. Bottom line: for weird movie fans or avant garde jazz geeks, Space Is the Place for at least a one-time visit.
![Space is the Place (Special Edition) (+ DVD) [Blu-ray] [1974]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41bZAfpxZqL._SL500_.jpg)
In the tradition of Fantasia and Allegro non Troppo, animators illustrate a concert performance of Holst’s “Neptune, the Mystic”; crabs scuttle over a violin and a skeletal hand scratches a hole in the sky.
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Audio only link (Soundcloud download)
Quick links/Discussed in this episode:
Megalopolis (2024): Discussion begins. Francis Ford Coppola announces his latest passion project, made with his own fortune, will screen in early 2024. The logline elliptically suggests “the fate of Rome haunts a modern world unable to solve its own social problems in this epic story of political ambition, genius, and dangerous love.” Coppola calls it “unusual” and star Adam Driver hints it “takes a risk.” We remain intrigued. Indiewire has more details.
Reflect (2023): Discussion begins. Trippy “New Age thriller” follows five women on a retreat at Sedona who find themselves menaced by shadow people. Now available on VOD. Reflect official site.
Sundance Film Festival (Park City, Utah, Jan. 18-28): Discussion begins. The 2024 film season officially kicks off at Sundance. Weird films will occasionally debut here, but it’s no sure thing; last year gave us only Infinity Pool, and this year’s feature slate does not look especially promising. Still, we’d take a flyer on the items below:
Slamdance Film Festival (Jan. 19-25): Discussion begins. Slamdance, Sundance’s punk cousin, runs concurrently and, featuring lower-budgeted films from less well-established filmmakers, tends to make bolder programming choices. The downside, of course, is that Slamdance offerings are less likely to find meaningful distribution. Here’s what looks weird at this dance:
NEPOTISM CORNER:
Deadoaks Mall: This new audio drama from Pete Trbovich, Giles Edwards and others is an absurdist/”Twilight Zone” type anthology set in an infinite, purgatorial mall with the slogan “you can find anything here…. except the exit!” Listen to “Dead Oaks Mall.”
WHAT’S IN THE PIPELINE:
Next week’s Pod 366 will largely focus on the films of José Mojica Marins, with the help of Rock! Shock! Pop!‘s Ian Jane. Our YouTube channel (please subscribe!) will become more crowded with the first of what will hopefully be a continuing series, as Pete Trbovich serves up a “Weird View Crew” video review of Space Is the Place (1974). In written reviews, Shane Wilson expands on our (almost complete) coverage of David Lynch with a review of his episodic experiment “Rabbits” (2002), Gregory J. Smalley gives you a somewhat late review of Yorgos Lanthimos‘ weird Oscar contender Poor Things, and Giles Edwards takes an equally delayed gander at Cory McAbee‘s collaborative freebie Deep Astronomy and the Romantic Sciences (available to watch free here, and check out our McAbee interview here). It’s another busy week at 366 Weird Movies! Onward and weirdward!
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Kimitachi wa dô ikiru ka
DIRECTED BY: Hayao Miyazaki
FEATURING: Voices of Soma Santoki, Masaki Suda, Yoshino Kimura, Kou Shibasaki, Aimyon, Takuya Kimura, Shōhei Hino, (Japanese); Luca Padovan, Robert Pattinson, Gemma Chan, Florence Pugh, Karen Fukuhara, Christian Bale, Mark Hamill (English dub)
PLOT: A Japanese boy who has lost his mother during WWII meets a mysterious heron who guides him into a fantastic netherworld where the living and dead co-exist in a bizarre ecosystem.
WHY IT MIGHT JOIN THE APOCRYPHA: It’s got that otherworldly Miyazaki character design, and enigmatic surprises galore. My high hopes were met in an early scene where the heron conjures a choir of fish and a cloak of frogs; once the protagonist enters the tower, the strangeness doesn’t let up.
COMMENTS: The venerable Hayao Miyazaki may be the only man alive still building new Wonderlands, making animated movies that feel like children’s literature. Disney/Pixar has a clear format: pick a clear theme—high fantasy, the four classical elements, Day of the Dead—add clear villain and clear comic relief, along with a clear moral to nod at. Miyazaki’s stories are psychologically complex and character driven, with bespoke worldbuilding that borrows from nothing but his imagination and the story’s demands. His hand-drawn animations are artistic rather than technically dazzling, and although he directs action nearly as well as his Western peers, his spectacles arise naturally rather than in response to script beats. While perhaps not quite up to the exemplary standard set by Spirited Away, The Boy and the Heron is a welcome return to the “big fantasy” genre, and sits comfortably alongside Miyazaki’s best work.
But, it must be said that The Boy and the Heron is oddly paced. The movie spends the first 45 of its 120 minutes in the real world. This drawn-out prologue is not at all unpleasant; we get to know Mahito extremely well, his relationship with his kind but distant father and his polite resentment towards his new stepmother (formerly his aunt). The seven old women who attend on the family at its estate and squabble over rare tobacco provide comic relief; whereas the other characters are drawn naturalistically, these old ladies are kindly caricatures, squat, with trademark features like bulbous red noses or eye-doubling spectacles; their cartoonish co-existence alongside the more elegant characters makes them resemble Snow White‘s seven dwarfs. Most importantly, this section develops Mahito’s relationship with the titular heron. At first, it is a rare and noble bird that takes an unusual interest in the boy. It gradually becomes an annoyance, slowly learning to speak, mocking Mahito while drawing him towards the mysterious sealed tower. The heron’s appearance also grows increasingly grotesque, as he reveals rows of Continue reading APOCRYPHA CANDIDATE: THE BOY AND THE HERON (2023)
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Molkipolki can be watched for free courtesy of the author.
DIRECTED BY: Kyril Zach
FEATURING: Kyril Zach
PLOT: A man guides a series of unseen buyers through a house, with little luck.
COMMENTS: Kyril Zach does a number of things well in this odd little exercise, but his greatest coup is perhaps choosing such a versatile nonsense phrase. “Molkipolki” (featured prominently in Molkipolki) can, it seems, convey amusement, exposition, sadness, regret, flirtation, and frustration. The first actual words I recognized in this film came from the soundtrack, during the brief “Man I’m Horny” interlude. (This turns out to be a high point, as later we learn through a background song that “I Vomit When You Cook”, suggesting a deterioration in the relationship.) Emotions rise and fall throughout this… this…
This film takes place entirely in one home, which may be described as “Early-to-Late-20th-Century-Bourgeoisie-Fusion.” (Considering this residence is the property of either the director or a family member, I’ll abstain from further remarks on the matter.) Meet protagonist, selling this home. Or trying to. The opening act ends on a discouraging note, setting it up well for the eventual seduction—or something—in the second, which in turn primes the viewer for quiet melodrama in the third act. All this is done with one man, one house, one camera, and one word.
This man, Kyril Zach, is always interesting to watch. His gestures are articulated without being overblown, and camera positions suggest at least modest experience with the art of placing a recording box and pointing it. All the action is absurd, but with some “merely odd” touches dripped about to heighten the experience. (Nearly everything is mimed, but it tickled me to see the protagonist pretending empty-handedly to have a beverage while positioned right in front of a shelf filled with a variety of drinking vessels.) The setting, chosen I suspect because of access, is a chaotic mélange of tchotchkes and doo-dads curated over decades.
So for 45 minutes we hear “molkipolki” while watching this man miming amongst a mishmash—though the camera is tastefully diverted elsewhere when our hero gets lucky (if you take my meaning), showing instead a series of shots of decorative plates, wall vases, and a few taxidermy specimens. Points, certainly, for dedication: the only non-“molkipolki” uttered from his lips was an obliging “mmmmm!” shortly before the cooking-related stomach upset. The musical score (which can also be downloaded for free) veers between tin-plate angelic choir and gut-rumble novelty bluegrass, sometimes both together, creating a musical soundscape reminiscent of The Residents on their best behavior. And while the static camera work is largely functional, the sexy-time wall-shot sequence smacked so much of a Greenaway interlude, I can’t help but wonder…
This film came to us out of the blue from a singular-minded individual with something to say: “molkipolki.” And damned if he doesn’t say it, to considerable dramatic and comedic effect.
WHAT THE CRITICS SAY: