Midnight Screenings 2015 / The Man Who Fell to Earth / United Kingdom 1976
A humanoid alien (David Bowie) arrives secretly on earth to find a way to save his species. Living in human society teaches him to have emotions, including hopelessness. A brilliant parable about the fear of being exceptional and about a cruel form of humanity.
Who else but David Bowie could pull off playing a man who fell to Earth? His alien visitor is humanoid and yet from a different world – an eccentric inventor and businessman who erects a huge industrial conglomerate almost out of nothing. Yet he himself hides in his hotel room watching myriad televisions at once. Charismatic Mr. Newton arrives in the US with a British passport and an offer of incredible technology for our world. In reality, however, he has come from a faraway planet to investigate whether Earth is suitable for colonization because his own people are running out of water at home. He infiltrates human society – and this is what brings about his downfall: he ends up as an alcoholic ruin who has lost his willpower. As is often the case with the sci-fi genre, this artistically striking picture, benefiting from powerful images and wonderful period music, still comments on our own world with its ruthlessness and suffocating uniformity. After 39 years its topicality remains intact.
Nikola Paggio
140 min / Color, DCP
Director Nicolas Roeg
/ Screenplay Paul Mayersberg
/ Dir. of Photography Anthony Richmond
/ Music John Phillips
/ Editor Graeme Clifford
/ Art Director Brian Eatwell
/ Producer Michael Deeley, Barry Spikings
/ Production British Lion Films
/ Cast David Bowie, Rip Torn, Candy Clark, Buck Henry
/ Sales Tamasa Distribution
Nicolas Roeg (b. 1928, London) is a world-renowned DOP and director with numerous pictures to his credit. In 2008 KVIFF organized a retrospective of his work, including the cult flick Walkabout (1971), portraying the ritual of a boy and girl growing up in the Australian bush; the incisive analysis of male obsession and relationships entitled Bad Timing (1980); the intimate film testimony Two Deaths (1994); and the mystery thriller Puffball (2007). Roeg’s films excel for their superb atmosphere and for editing which overrides the traditional narrative conception of time and space while evoking controversial reactions in a wide range of emotions. Namely, he works with extremes and thus brings to light those moments that force us to doubt the perfection of human civilization and of cinema.
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